


Terribelle Things

by Signel_chan



Series: Plucky and Prideful-verse [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Babies, Bad Decisions, Drinking, Drunken Hookups Gone Wrong, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signel_chan/pseuds/Signel_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maribelle has a way of making the worst possible decisions. Not just ones that impact herself, but ones that affect everyone around her, and never in the way that she would have liked them to. Call it a weakness, but she's one for being the catalyst of terrible things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maribelle Makes Bad Decisions

Another boring summer morning, another day where Maribelle woke up unsure of what she was going to do to pass the time. She rubbed her eyes to really wake herself up, then she dramatically yawned and stretched, grabbing her phone as she did. By the time she’d been awake for five minutes, she had already checked through the new comments on the collection of selfies she had posted the day before, making a mental note of which of her lovely friends and followers had showered her with love. Seeing all the pleasant messages reminder her that she was a beautiful and nearly-perfect person, and that she didn’t need some cheating, woman-using man in her life—and that her affections could be being used on someone so much better: herself.

After completing her go-through of all her social media accounts, leaving comments of her own on what she considered the greatest posts she found (including two different posts about her absolutely adorable godson), she rolled out of bed, setting her phone back down just long enough to dress herself. Then it was back to scouring through the likes and comments of some of her pictures, particularly the ones she had captioned with her new self-love mantra. Usually the first person to make any show of love to the images was her best friend, but that had begun to happen less and less as Lissa was far too distracted by being a good mother to her newborn son to spend too much time online. In her absence, someone else had started to take up that first-responding role, and from what Maribelle could glean from their Instagram profile, they were a guy who seemed to be finding her cute.

Why else would the entirety of this guy’s likes be her selfies? He wasn’t even liking the pictures she had posted of her godson, just the pictures that were solely herself, and since she genuinely felt that Owain was just the cutest thing alive, there had to be something to this guy not sharing that same opinion. And Maribelle, being the woman so focused on herself and everyone’s opinion of her, took this as a sign that she had a potential suitor, coming to her within months of her heart being shattered by her long-time crush.

But how was she going to ever find a way to test this person’s interests? Certainly she would have to really think about a way to find out how this guy was really feeling about her. Or maybe she would just go take more selfies and include other people in them, hoping that it would bait the guy into saying something about her while ignoring whoever else was in the picture. And that was how Maribelle figured out how she was going to turn her boring morning into an exciting day spent with her best friend and her godson, all done for the sake of a possible romance.

That reasoning was not something Lissa was ever supposed to find out about. If she knew that Maribelle was using her and her son for this reason, she would have refused to have any part of it, but because she was blissfully ignorant to the true intentions, she was more than happy to pose for friendly pictures. She was less okay with Maribelle trying to get a good picture on her own with baby Owain, but that was more because the way that Owain was being held made it look a lot like Maribelle was his mom. “Oh, Lissa dear, everyone online knows that this cutie belongs to you, not to me,” she said, trying to get her phone positioned properly to get the shot she wanted. “He looks nothing like me, and very much like you, and everyone knows that I would never subject myself to having a child, no matter what.”

“Yes, but…” Lissa shook he head and gave a defeated sigh. “You know that people might assume things, especially people who don’t know that this is my baby you’re using for attention.” She reached for Maribelle’s phone, grabbing it so that there wasn’t weird positioning needed to get the picture taken. “And I think it would help a whole bunch if you weren’t taking a picture with him laying on your chest like that.”

Maribelle looked down at how little Owain was peacefully sleeping on her, his head snuggled in at the base of her neck. “You’re probably right, my dear, but I simply cannot wake him to get a better picture. I know how his crying bothers you, and I don’t want to knock you into a fit of motherly rage for a simple picture.”

“Oh, he won’t cry, I don’t think. He loves spending time with his godmommy.” Getting Maribelle to genuinely smile at the kind words, Lissa took a couple pictures before handing the phone back. “Now let’s see what other cute stuff we can get him to do while sleeping. I bet we’ll be able to make him do so many great poses!”

“I love the way you think, Lissa. Let’s get him off of me like this first, though. I am pretty sure he’s drooling on my shirt, and I don’t want a wet spot on my shirt whenever we get more pictures with me in them.” The two shared a quiet laugh, before Lissa picked up Owain as carefully as she could, hoping that the movement wouldn’t wake him up. From the first slight jostle, the baby’s eyes opened and he tried to make sense of the world around him; as the first blonde woman he saw wasn’t his mother, he began to do what babies do best and wail. Maribelle’s face fell at the sound, her smile fading immediately, while Lissa simply sighed and snuggled her son up close to her chest to calm him down.

The crying brought someone else’s presence into the bedroom, someone that Maribelle had hoped wouldn’t appear for very long, if at all, that day. “Aw, what’s got my kiddo all worked up?” Vaike asked, trying to take Owain from Lissa’s arms, but she glared at him to get him to stop. “I gotcha, you don’t want ol’ Vaike makin’ things worse. You and your crazy momma skills, I guess.”

“It’s not that you’ll make things worse, it’s that I’m already handling it, and we don’t need him crying any longer than he already is.” Her voice was being drowned out by the crying, and once she finished speaking she was shushing and turning her words to calming ones whispered to the child.

“So much for trying to not knock you into your motherly rage,” Maribelle muttered, watching just how lovingly her best friend was treating the crying baby. “There go my plans for the afternoon.”

As if he hadn’t even noticed she was there before, Vaike seemed incredibly shocked to hear Maribelle saying anything. “Well hey there, Maribelle! What brings ya ‘round here today? Can’t keep your eyes off my kid like usual, huh?”

“While I am here to spend time with my most precious godson, I can assure you that I can actually keep my eyes off of him.” Thinking quickly to come up with a preemptive answer to the logical “then why are you getting pictures of him then?” question that could follow at any point, Maribelle continued with, “I simply need to get my fair share of time with him before I go away to school for the semester.”

“Oh, that makes a whole lotta sense. Ya gotta get you fill of this l’il guy before he ain’t l’il anymore.” Laughing, Vaike tried to reach for Owain again, but was still met with a death glare in response. “C’mon, Lissa, lemme hold him for a bit. You’ve gotten him to kinda stop cryin’, now let him spend some time with his dad.”

“I’m sorry Vaike, but I just don’t want to let go of him until I know he won’t just start crying again.” Looking down at her son with a small smile on her face, Lissa gave a content sigh. “He’s so cute when he’s calming down from being fussy. His eyes are just so perfect when they’re still shining with his little tears.”

Maribelle wasn’t sure if this was “proud mom” Lissa or “completely honest” Lissa talking, but she did know that she needed to get a picture of her best friend in this moment of fierce motherhood. There was just one tiny problem with the attempt that followed, and that was that the auto-flash had been turned on, and the room was just dim enough to trigger the flash as she took the picture. The crying didn’t start again, but Lissa did end up staring at Maribelle, slightly stunned. “I, er, didn’t mean for that to happen.” Maribelle sheepishly said, setting her phone down. “I just wanted a forever memory of how great of a mommy you are to your baby.”

“Couldn’t we have planned that sort of picture? I’ve gotta look so terrible right now…” Lissa gave a fake sniffle, carefully moving one hand from holding Owain so that she could brush her messy bangs out of her face. “And please tell me you only got from where I’m holding him and up, please.”

The sheepishness Maribelle had been feeling moved into her face, an embarrassed blush filling her cheeks. “I could say that, my dear, but it would be a horrible lie. Despite what lies you keep telling yourself, you look stunning from being a month removed from having a child, and—“

“Why is she allowed to get pictures of ya?” Vaike interrupted, completely cutting off Maribelle’s explanation of her actions. “That’s a bit sketchy, Lissa, lettin’ your best friend get pictures but not lettin’ the guy you’re gonna be marryin’ do the same thing!”

“I didn’t let her take that. And I’d really appreciate it if she’d delete it or something so that no one could possibly see how terrible I look.” There was genuine hurt in Lissa’s voice as she spoke, and it would have broken Maribelle’s heart if she hadn’t been so insistent that there was nothing wrong with her friend’s appearance. Like she had been trying to explain, there was not a single visible issue with how Lissa looked so soon after having her baby, and for her to be hard on herself for looking like a real mother wasn’t exactly fair.

She wasn’t going to dare try explaining that again, though; she knew that if the thought was fully expressed, someone would accuse her of being fake with her opinion, as she would do exactly the same as Lissa if their roles were reversed, and they would have been right. It wasn’t a fight worth getting into, but Maribelle still didn’t delete the picture, and she even posted it with the rest of the good pictures she had gotten that day. That, expectedly, got her a few angry messages about how “ugly” that picture was, but Maribelle really hoped that all the comments that were praising the natural-looking mom in the picture would make Lissa feel at least a little better about her appearance.

And, in a twist that Maribelle had very much hoped for, that one follower exclusively liked the pictures involving her and only her. They did comment on one of the pictures of her and her godson, but their comment was glowing towards her. With their mention of how she managed to look so beautiful even while holding a child across her chest, she knew that this guy was just trying to get a grasp on her heart. She needed to find a way to really know this guy, and she needed to do it quickly.

* * *

 

The week after Maribelle left for school, her online admirer sent her a private message on a different social media site that they had become friends on, asking if he could get to know her a bit better. “From all of your posts and pictures, I’m seeing that you’re not just a beautiful face, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders too, and I think I’d love to get to talk to you more,” the message read, which she saw as she was walking across her college campus to one of her classes. Her heart picked up to a furious pace when she had seen there was a message in the first place, and by the time she had finished reading it, she was about positive that her heart could have leapt out of her chest. This was just some guy online, he shouldn’t have been making her feel this way, she kept telling herself, but the truth of the matter was that he was making her feel so madly in love and she needed to do something about it.

Replying to him was a no-brainer, although in retrospect Maribelle could have done so much better than a simple “I agree! Let’s get to know each other a bit!” But she was thinking too fast to really come up with a better reply, and she just wanted to get this guy actually talking to her. His response came after a few days, during which Maribelle was frantically checking every possibly social media outlet she had ever used trying to see what he could possibly know about her to maybe comment on, and she made special care to check the ones where he could reply to her as often as she could. She wasn’t too terribly disappointed with the response she ended up getting, as it was a fairly detailed description of the guy’s life and backstory, but the one thing it lacked, in her opinion, was an attractive picture of him.

So when she sent her essay-like reply, she made sure to attach a couple of selfies she had taken in front of the mirror hanging on her dorm room wall. It definitely went along well with her explanation of who she really was, because while her vanity was the most important aspect of her personality, her education status and dreams of becoming a future woman of law was a close second. Without her quest for achieving her life’s goal, she was nothing more than a pretty face, and she didn’t want this guy to see her as only those good looks. Then again, her constantly mentioning that she was currently attending school would have probably given him the idea that education was important, making the selfies in front of the mirror unnecessary.

They continued to exchange messages for weeks, every day growing a bit closer together. By the time her first break from classes long enough to go home was upon her, Maribelle wanted to get to meet this guy—a reasonable request, as she had discovered that he lived somewhere in the same town she hailed from. But when she asked him if that sounded like a good plan, she never got a response. It wasn’t until she was back in her dorm after a weekend spent with her parents and her best friend that she got any message in return. The guy, clearly upset that he had missed his deadline to getting to meet her, explained that something had come up and he hadn’t been able to get online to tell her anything, something he deeply apologized for. “Had I know you would be in town, I gladly would have made time for you,” his explanation read, “and so the next time you’re back, I’ll try my damn best to meet with you.”

If things worked out perfectly, then they would have met over the fall break from classes. But like with the first instance, when Maribelle asked if the guy was available, she didn’t get an answer until it was too late. The same thing happened when she was home for the semester break that winter, which she felt was off because if the guy was at the same stage of his life as she was at with hers, he should have been readily available. All her free time that break, which was whenever her parents were both busy with their jobs and Lissa was busy with her family, was then spent sitting idly around town just watching people walk by, hoping that she’d catch her mystery man out in public. When he eventually messaged her back, he explained that his job was keeping him busy, and that he was going to be out of town for the actual holidays.

She didn’t act like she was too hurt by the news, but she certainly stopped trying so hard to be with him. If there was one mistake she wasn’t going to make again, it was falling too deeply in love with a guy she would never get. And so, for the rest of her break and into the spring semester, she went back to focusing all her love on herself and not even a bit on her devoted online fan. Yet, when he began messaging her once more, attempting to get back in her good graces, she fell right back into the routine of talking to him almost daily. Once he brought up the possibility of them finally meeting in person over her spring break, though, she refused, saying she’d rather spend that time with her godson and best friend.

This came back to bite her a few weeks later, when she came home for the weekend of her twenty-first birthday, expecting to get to celebrate it with this guy. His denial of her invitation at least made sense, him reminding her that their first meeting should be something memorable, not overshadowed by her first legal night of drinking. She ended up spending her birthday getting drunk in the living room at Lissa’s house, and even then, her best friend didn’t participate in the festivities. The men of the house both came in and spent time with her, but since they had work business the following day they refused drinks, and the only person who was willing to partake in any drinking with her was Robin; even then, she had maybe two glasses of wine before she stopped her alcohol consumption, while Maribelle was drinking anything and everything in sight, spending the rest of the time crying over how unloved she felt.

At one point, still in tears and very much inebriated, she stumbled out of the living room and down the hall, knocking on every door she found in the process. The result? A sleeping young girl coming out to see what was going on, a grumpy Chrom having to put an end to the imbibing, and a couple who had been trying to sleep but were woken up by their distraught son who had been startled by the knocks. Not even Lissa was able to instantly forgive Maribelle for what she had done, because although it was her birthday, she hadn’t needed to get everyone’s attention back on her, and it was decided by the members of the household that Maribelle needed to go home and cause trouble for her parents instead.

“But please,” she whined as she resisted going to the car to be driven home, drawing out most of her vowels as she complained, “I’m just celebrating my special day. You all should be a part of it!” Wanting to have to deal with the situation for as short of a time as possible, Chrom decided to just pick her up and carry her out to the car, because he had woken up angry and every additional moment he was having to listen to Maribelle’s self-centered whining was just making him angrier.

“Just get in the damn car!” he eventually snapped, shutting her up instantaneously. She climbed into the car as fast as she could after that, and he followed, quickly leaving to take her home. “You are a difficult one normally, but throw some alcohol in your system and you become downright terrible. What gives?”

She gave a loud sob, before breaking out into a rambling explanation of why she was so upset and had most definitely overdone it with her behavior. “Well, Chrom, it all started last fall, with this great guy talking to me, and he lives somewhere around here, but he’s always finding excuses for not meeting me! And even on a day as great as my birthday! Which then this only got worse when there was only one person who wanted to celebrate with me and while I really do love your wife, she’s just so boring at times and it made me so sad that no one else, not even my best friend, loved me enough to shower me with attention!”

“You, er, do realize that most of us have things we have to do tomorrow, yet we still let you into the house to celebrate how we could. But that’s not really important, as you’ll realize in the morning.” Chrom, loosening his death grip on the steering wheel a bit, glanced over at Maribelle, who was staring back at him with a drunken gaze. “What was that about a guy you haven’t met? You’re not getting involved with him. As your older brother-type figure, I say you’re not.”

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” she screeched in reply, catching him off guard enough to jerk the steering wheel violently to the side, sending them swerving across lanes of traffic until he was able to correct their direction.

“Don’t ever do that again, unless you want to walk yourself home.” His voice was too serious for her to question, so she sat meekly and silently as he continued speaking. “But really, don’t get involved with some stranger. That’ll end worse than the time your best friend, my dearest sister, got involved with a guy she barely knew. We in my family care about you, Maribelle, and we want to see you happy.”

That reminder would definitely have been helpful to her, had she not been so drunk that she didn’t remember a thing come the next morning. So when she had a late birthday message from her online admirer, she was simply reminded of how much she wanted to meet this guy—and, for once, the reason they ended up not doing that was on her, as she was too hungover to climb out of bed, let alone make herself presentable for her possible man. This led her to curse her decision to celebrate mostly alone, because had she known the guy would be willing the day after her birthday, she would have sacrificed her celebrating. Especially when he told her, in exact words, some of the messages she had sent him the previous evening.

She was appalled at her crude and immature behavior while inebriated, and she felt morally obligated to apologize over and over again for some of the sexually charged things she sent. He didn’t seem too bothered by any of it, not even her supposed nude images she had sent him; those, though, were fake and only mentioned as an attempt to get her more riled up. It most certainly worked, and when it was revealed to be a ruse she was extremely relieved that her drunk self wasn’t that much of a depraved person.

Meeting this guy simply needed to happen soon, and she wasn’t going to let it take any longer than it absolutely had to. She should have figured that their meeting would be completely planned and decided on his terms, as evidenced by the fact that, to that point, the only time that would have worked out for them was one he had suggested. So when, after her semester at school had ended, he invited her to a party with his friends as his date, she knew that this time was going to work out for them.

He sent the address to her the day before the party, along with a message to not tell anyone that she was going there specifically. The address was one she recognized as being in the neighborhood by her old high school, and she felt like she could almost vividly envision the building, but she shrugged it off as simple coincidence. It was just going to be a house party on an unfamiliar street with a guy she’d been talking to for months. There was nothing more to the situation, and worrying with possible things to go wrong wasn’t needed.

But, as things were apt to do, everything went completely wrong. The beauty of the situation was, they had already been wrong from the very beginning, starting from when the guy had begun showering Maribelle with attention. Following his explicit directions, she showed up in front of the addressed house wearing one of her finest outfits, dolled up to the nines, and when she got there she immediately realized that things were amiss. She knew the address felt familiar to her, and seeing the two-story house before he let it sink in: this place, at least at one point, had belonged to the family of the man she had once loved. She’d spent time there as a young girl, back when Chrom and Lissa and their older sister had lived there, and to come back to such a place for a completely different reason seemed simply odd to her.

At least, hopefully, the reason she was there this time had nothing at all to do with that man. And when she saw a fiery red head of hair she’d spent so long desiring to meet in person, she stopped worrying so much about what could be, and instead focused on what was about to be. But then the head turned to face her and the face she was staring at was too female, too lacking the chiseled grit that she’d seen in pictures. Maribelle’s eyes widened and her heart dropped at the sight, especially when this woman grinned at her and shot her a thumbs-up.

Once it fully hit her that this woman had been posing as at least the physical incarnation of the guy she had been talking to, Maribelle noticed that, sitting next to her, were three men, two of whom she knew very well. They were all laughing at this point, their laughter obviously at the expense of the poor girl who had been tricked into falling deeply in love with someone who definitely wasn’t who they said they were. She felt shame and ridicule, seeing them laughing at her, but what could she do? She’d been invited to this party, although under false pretenses, and she was still going to celebrate.

Little did she know that the four people sitting out front were the extent of the party. This became painfully obvious when she went inside and the house was empty, both floors a virtual ghost town. “What kind of party even this this?” she asked out loud, her voice hitting high tones of being upset. “You can’t tell me that—“

“There was no party to begin with? There is one, but it’s a lot more intimate than you’d believe.” The group had come in behind her, and that was Chrom talking, setting his hand on her shoulder as he spoke. “When all this started, we figured this would be how it ended, but hopefully you can see past those lies and enjoy the evening with us.”

“There is no way I can _enjoy_ an evening after having my heart broken yet again!” She pushed his hand off and stormed away, leaving him to sigh and mutter something about how he had tried warning her about this situation.

“Chrom, y’know this was the only way she was gonna learn not to trust guys online. ‘s why we did it, before someone actually took advantage ‘a her.” Vaike looked at Chrom, who gave a small nod of understanding, and then he looked at the other two group members. “And at least it won’t exactly us doin’ the dirty work. We had Stahl and Sully here on the job, and who knew that girl was so desperate off her ‘breakup’ that she’d wanna date Sully in lots of manly makeup?”

“Oh, you better be meaning that as a damn compliment, you hear?” Sully replied, threatening to kick Vaike for what he said. “I thought that Lissa and Robin did a great job of making me look like a man. Sure, it took lot more makeup than I’d ever wish to wear, but…”

He dodged her foot as she decided to make good on her threatened kick and laughed. “’Course that was a compliment! Means they made ya convincin’ enough to get’cha to trick a very man-crazy woman into thinkin’ you were the real deal.”

“She had me to help too, you know!” Chiming in where he could, Stahl earned the attention of the other three and he froze for a moment, before proceeding with his thought. “She wouldn’t have been able to type like a friendly guy if I hadn’t been there helping. Even if, well, I didn’t have to do too much in terms of pretending and I did a whole lot more about making food for everyone.”

“Which is a noble task to take on. But enough about the past. Shouldn’t there have been some food made for this, er, party?” Chrom’s smile to Stahl made it incredibly clear that he was more interested in having a meal than anything else that could possibly be happening. “You were entrusted with providing food tonight, weren’t you?”  
Stahl took a moment to think back on if he had been told to bring food, before slapping himself on the forehead. “I was! But I spent all my extra money on the alcohol for tonight, because I didn’t even think about needing to make a feast!” While the other three, most especially Chrom, groaned at that information, Stahl tried to come up with some resolution to the problem he had caused, but when he had no answer he dashed out of the entry area of the house where they had congregated and into the kitchen—where he found all his liquor bottles spread out and Maribelle mixing herself a drink. “Oh, you’re still here? Does this mean you’re expecting food from me too?”

“I was expecting a cute boy to sleep with tonight, but food sounds lovely too.” Her words slurred a bit in her reply, Maribelle poured something else into her already mostly-full glass. When she looked up and saw Stahl’s shoulders slump in defeat, she smirked. “Let me guess, that’s another thing you’re holding in front of my face that I can’t have, huh?”

“Only kinda-sorta…” Still thinking of how to fix the problem at hand, Stahl felt like there was some sort of miracle happening when his phone went off in his pocket, and when he checked it there was a message that consisted solely of an emote of a pizza. “Oh! I’ve got it! I’ll just have—“

“Stahl, you idiot, the problem’s already been solved.” Walking into the kitchen and leaning against one of the counters, Sully gave a small laugh. “Sent you that message to give you that clue. The second you ran in here, Chrom called a friend of ours and convinced him to bring us a couple of damn pizzas since you dropped the ball on food. Shoulda made sure you were told that before you thought too much about what to do, but instead you got the message I sent and got excited for the wrong reason.”

“Yeah, I guess I did mess this one up a bit. Oh well, as long as someone’s getting food, I guess I can’t complain.” He chuckled, before looking to Maribelle, who was in the middle of a long drink of whatever beverage she’d created. “Wait, she’s here, and Chrom asked _him_ to bring something? That’s not going to end well.”

Also looking to see Maribelle mid-drink, Sully nodded. “We all thought it’d be fine. Besides, it’s Chrom’s idea above all and he knows the girl better than any of the rest of us. If he was okay with having Frederick show up, then it’s not a bad idea at all.” Thankfully, Maribelle didn’t seem to be paying attention to the woman who had skillfully duped her into thinking she was a guy, so she didn’t hear the name that had been used. But that sort of good fortune could only last so long, and once the front door to the house was opened again and in walked the man in question with pizzas in his arms, there was no way she was still going to be able to ignore him.

By the time that Frederick had come into the kitchen with those pizzas, everyone who had gathered had started to drink, and so his appearance was greeted with four cheerful voices exclaiming joy at the sight of food. The fifth person, realizing just who this man was that she was now staring at, excused herself from the kitchen and quickly found herself locked in the bathroom, trying to explain the situation to her reflection. “I’ve been tricked,” she slowly said, trying to minimize the slur to her words, “and I can’t escape. If I leave I’ll be caught! If I ask for a ride, I’ll be shamed! But I can’t stay here, not with that disgusting man around…”

“Hey, yo, Maribelle? You okay in there?” Based on the informal tone he had taken on, it was clear that Chrom was very much inebriated, and he was trying to show drunken concern for his sister’s best friend. “If you need to talk about something, I’m here for you.” This was coupled with a never-ending knocking on the door, and from how aggressive he seemed to be (unknowingly) getting, she was honestly a bit scared he’d break through the door if she didn’t say anything.

“I just don’t think I can do this tonight,” she eventually replied, gripping the locked door handle tightly. “Do you know what it’s like to be somewhere with someone you once loved so passionately?”

He laughed loudly, ceasing his knocking to make the laughter seem even louder. “There’s a reason that I told him he had to come to this alone tonight. I’d probably end up feeling the same way if he had brought his lady friend with him.” Although she couldn’t see him, she knew that Chrom was probably cringing over on his side of the door. She could vividly remember the fallout from the only relationship he had been in before he had gotten married, and how there had been many nights after that breakup that involved him being inconsolable and hanging around her and Lissa for support. Then she remembered her own experience with this woman, when she went to her to tell her she was with an unfaithful man (although, in retrospect, he had only been being friendly with her). Getting so lost in her own thoughts, Maribelle had a rude awakening when she heard Chrom almost scream in the middle of one of his sentences. “It’s so stupid that we just can’t get along, all of us! Come on out, please, before what you let happen between you and Frederick gets as bad as what’s happened to me and Sumia.”

“Are you saying you still love her? Or are you just trying to connect with me and my issues?” Unlocking and opening the door, Maribelle saw Chrom awkwardly shrugging in response to her deep questions. “Oh, no matter I guess. Just promise me that you’ll let this be a night of fun and drinking and you won’t harp too much on my terrible romance nonsense.”

“I promise you that, Maribelle,” Chrom told her, offering her his hand. “Now let’s rejoin everyone before we miss them all drinking each other under the table.” She laughed, taking hold of what he had offered, and together they went back into the kitchen, the sight of empty liquor bottles and several drunk individuals greeting them. “What have we here? You all decided to have the fun without us, it seems. Please say you’ve all kept at least a little something for us.”

The general consensus was that something had indeed been saved for when Chrom and Maribelle came back, in the form of several unopened bottles, and so the drinking continued deep into the night. As the hours passed, it became clear that some of the people present had either a high tolerance for alcohol or no limit when it came to packing it away, something that Maribelle couldn’t help but think about in her muddled mind when she stared at the man sitting across from her, taking every drink offered to him and not changing his stance or sitting position after every one. She was completely and utterly drunk by the time it was midnight, but rather than being her obnoxious drunk self, she was simply sitting there, staring at that man, hoping that he’d eventually stare back at her.

“Y’know what needs t’be said right now?” Vaike loudly slurred, pointing a finger in Maribelle’s direction. She didn’t move a muscle, her eyes focused on the same target as always, until he reached out and grabbed her shoulder, shaking it a bit. The movement was enough to snap her into looking at him, seeing the drunken grin lighting up his face. “You’ve gotta be one of the loveliest ladies ever, and—“

“Don’t say it, Vaike. You know you’ve got someone at home, that being my sister, to keep you company at night.” Chrom, trying to sound as stern as he possibly could despite the fact that he’d been drinking, shook his head at what he’d heard. “You don’t have to tell us all that you’d be interested in sleeping with Maribelle.”

She gasped at hearing her name being used in that sentence, looking at the hand that was touching her shoulder with almost-disgust, before shrugging it off. In her drunken mind, what was the problem with someone wanting to sleep with her, even if they were currently engaged to her best friend in the whole world? “Honestly, Chrom, we could have a show a’ hands right now and everyone’d raise ‘em up for bangin’ her.” He hadn’t actually made the call to do so, but the hands raised anyway: his off of her shoulder, Chrom’s reluctant one with an eyeroll, quick-to-raise hands from both Stahl and Sully (whom looked at each other and laughed when they saw what they did), and finally, after a few seconds of everyone else having a hand up, Frederick looked straight at Maribelle and lifted his hand inches from the countertop. She caught his gaze and felt herself melting on the inside, never expecting to see him do anything like that in regards to her.

“I see your point, but this is all irrelevant. How much of this will matter in the morning?” Putting his hand down, Chrom waited for everyone else to do the same, which they all did, Frederick once again being the last to act. “Now let’s forget this happened and move on.”

Despite the group as a whole heeding his words, Maribelle couldn’t move on from what had happened. Having everyone drunkenly admit that they’d sleep with her was one thing, but for the guy she had loved so desperately and wanted so badly to be one of that general “everyone” was another. She was once again staring hopelessly at him, waiting for him to do anything but look stoic and as if he wanted to be anywhere but there, but he wasn’t budging.

A loud slamming sound broke her from this bout of staring, as she and everyone else looked to Vaike once more, him having just knocked his hand against the counter hard. “Thought of somethin’ else that needs sayin’,” he began, once again pointing towards Maribelle. “And no, this ain’t about wantin’ to bang ya. At least, not about me wantin’ to.”

Without even beginning to think about what she was going to say, she blurted out, “That’s okay, if it’s not about Frederick then I don’t care.” But the moment the words spilled out of her lips, she regretted even speaking then. Her eyes went wide and she found herself unable to look away from the man across from her, who was now looking at her with the most curious of expressions upon his face. “I-I mean, what did you want to say?”

“Sounds like someone’s still got a bit of a crush she hasn’t shaken off.” His voice was steady, as if he actually hadn’t been drinking at all, but the way Frederick smiled and looked like he was amused by what he had heard, it was clear that he wasn’t completely sober. “What a shame that I can’t help you on this desire here tonight. After all,” he raised his hand once more, this time showing off the simple wedding band he wore on his finger, “Sumia would be very displeased if I went against our union.”

At the name of that woman, Chrom’s eye began twitching, and while he thought about what to say in regards to that, he left the conversation wide open for Vaike to finish saying what he had started before, although he ultimately chose to direct some thoughts towards Frederick instead. “Whenever ya wanna stop actin’ like some noble guy for wantin’ to stay true t’your woman, go right on ahead. Everyone knows she’s nothin’ but crazy and that y’could do so much better. Like…” It seemed like he had lost his train of thought, which wasn’t entirely impossible, but then Vaike motioned towards Maribelle with both hands. “Her, for example. She’s not that bad.”

“I could never, and would never, leave who I chose to marry for someone that has nothing more than a crush on me. Nothing against you, Maribelle, of course.” He smiled at her and she nearly fell out of her chair. Sure, he had just told her that he wouldn’t be with her, but she was too drunk to let that process properly and was instead reveling in the fact that he was _smiling_ at her. “Perhaps I should call for my wife now and leave before things get worse than they already have.”

“That will not be necessary.” His eye still twitching, Chrom grabbed his phone and typed something into it, before casting it aside. “If she comes anywhere near here, I will make sure that she knows she’s cost you your job. I know it’s not rational to fire someone based on who they’re with, but she was my girlfriend first, and a guy doesn’t date his best friend’s ex-girlfriend, ever.”

Frederick’s smile faded and he lowered the hand he had still been using to show off his ring. “I didn’t know you still felt that way about that, Chrom. If I had known…”

“Hey, you can’t threaten him with losing his job over that!” Speaking up for what felt like the first time all night (although, in reality, he’d been talking quite frequently), Stahl shook his head fiercely at Chrom’s words. “That’s like, uh, threatening any of the rest of us for doing something similar! It’s not right!”

“Calm down. It’s Chrom talking, we’re all drunk, and no one’s going to remember this in the morning. Let him make the damn threats. They’re fun and fun to watch.” Sully playfully smacked Stahl’s arm and he silently agreed with her, although he did rub at where he’d been hit for a few minutes due to the sheer strength behind her smack.

“It wasn’t a mere threat,” Chrom clarified, grabbing his phone again. “I wrote down what I said, and if that woman does show up around here, I will mark it down and make good on my word. I’m all for having fun while drinking, but her coming is where I draw the line.”

Frederick sighed, slowly nodding as he did. “Understood, Chrom. I won’t call her to come get me. However, this also means that I am having no part of anything that could jeopardize my relationship with her. I do hope you understand this.”

“That’s funny, because I think you’re going to have to.” Once again typing away on his phone, Chrom laughed. “How about this: you get to keep your job if, and only if, you break the rules a little. If you break her heart a bit.”

“If I…? How could you suggest such a thing? I could never!” Despite his protests, it became very clear that a drunk Frederick was an easily-manipulated Frederick, especially when it came to Chrom making mostly empty threats. This was only made worse with Vaike constantly interjecting himself into the conversation, oddly fixated on the topic of someone, anyone, sleeping with Maribelle.

The night was getting into the late hours when the two ended up being locked in a room together, both still drunk and still easily influenced. Maribelle knew, deep down, that what was being expected to happen was incredibly wrong and that she should be refusing to take part in it, but at the same time, she never had expected to get so close to being able to actually sleep with the man of her dreams. Frederick wasn’t necessarily willing, but he was under the impression that if he didn’t do as he was told, he would be losing his job and his best friend, and neither of those were things easily replaced. Had he been less drunk, he would have realized that replacing trust with his wife wouldn’t be easy either, but there was no time for that sort of thinking.

Chrom had been right—how much of this would matter in the morning? It was a one-time drunken sexual escapade brought on by insistent people. It may have been morally wrong to be a part of, but beyond waking up together the next morning and not being entirely sure if there _was_ any sexual behavior between them, did it matter? They could have simply collapsed into bed together, dead drunk, and woken up that way. There was no need for proof of anything happening, and that was that.

Except things didn’t work that way, a fact they both were well-aware of. The people who did remember the night’s events made it a point to not tell a single soul, to act like nothing at all had happened. The problem there was, one of the people who did remember was Vaike, who had, in great detail, told Lissa every single detail of that night, so that she could hold it over her best friend’s head that she knew what had gone on. Rather than being something that she could forget about, Maribelle was forced to live with the guilt that she had drunkenly slept with the married man of her dreams. But as long as it was just Lissa occasionally teasing her about it, it was fine. Guilt was something that could be moved past from.

The sinking feeling of something that wasn’t going to be so easily ignored, not so much.


	2. Maribelle Faces the Consequences of Her Bad Decisions

Maribelle hadn’t felt like herself in weeks, something she attributed to that still-lingering guilt eating at her from what had happened that night. With every piece of information she learned about that fateful night, she realized that the only person, in the end, to blame for the drunken sexual activity was herself, causing the guilt tearing at her insides to get more and more unbearable. They may have been led to the room, but by no means were they actually locked in it, meaning they could have left had they wanted to; she had taken advantage of the moment to get what she had wanted since she was younger, take advantage of a strong man who became incredibly submissive when fueled by alcohol. Never would she be able to face Frederick again without feeling shame for once again trying to ruin what he had. But as she began to find acceptance in what she’d done, the guilt inside seemed to intensify, getting worse seemingly by the day.

There was a flicker of fear in her mind, a worry that something much worse than just causing a man to be unfaithful had taken place there in that room. It most certainly was not a thought she wanted to entertain, but she fully understood that even the most drunken of actions had consequences, and if her personal consequence was that she was going to be suffering from this forever, she had to accept it. So many times before, she had jokingly fantasized about bearing this man’s children—after all, she had been madly in love with him—but to face that possibility in such ugly circumstances was never how she had wanted things to be. He was married and had a daughter; she was now just some home-wrecking floozy who very well could be with child. With his child.

There was no way she was going to get out of this situation painlessly, especially if the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach actually was an illegitimate child, one conceived in a night of alcoholic passion. Despite the circumstances, she could never and would never do anything to harm the potential life within her, as it hadn’t done anything wrong. Only its parents had. Only _she_ had. She was going to have to suck it up, reminding herself that, whatever was going on, she was responsible and held blame for it. But even thinking about the possibility of there being a child involved in all of this terrified her more than anything. It was one thing to admit to sleeping with a married man, but it was so much worse to even consider the fact that she could possibly be carrying his child.

She had to turn somewhere for help, ask for assistance in this trying time of her life. While she wouldn’t confirm or deny that she actually was pregnant, she was pretty certain that it was the only real possibility. By the time a month had passed since that night, the chances of her being anything but pregnant were fading fast, leaving her panicked and scrambling to figure out what to do. She couldn’t exactly walk into a store and try buying a pregnancy test, nor could she go into the nearest women’s clinic and ask for help, as word would inevitably find its way to her father. If he found out that she was having a baby, especially given the situation, he would react harshly and unjustly, never letting her get a word in to defend her bad choices. The worst part would be how he would most likely instantly start blaming a completely innocent party for this, when she had no part in any of it, on the grounds of her having mad this same bad decision in the recent past.

That was what ultimately led Maribelle to confide first in her best friend, by means of showing up at her front door unannounced. Like always, it was Chrom who answered her knocking, and the moment he saw her standing there, he pretended to shut the door in her face, all while calling for his sister to see her guest. When Lissa did come to the door, looking absolutely frazzled as she held a shrieking Owain in her arms, she took one glance at her friend and gasped. After making sure no one was around, she stepped outside and closed the door behind her, approaching Maribelle with wide, worry-filled eyes. “You look like you’ve been through something terrible,” she said, voice barely audible over Owain’s screams. “Yet at the same time…” She leaned closer to her friend, looking at her face intently in the dim nighttime light. “Your skin has a shine to it that it normally doesn’t.”

“Because I’m not wearing any makeup, for once,” Maribelle lied in response, knowing entirely why Lissa had said what she did. “It’s also dark, and you know that—“

“You wouldn’t normally make a visit over here this late in the evening without makeup on, Maribelle. I’ve known you far too long to believe that.” Stepping back a bit, Lissa readjusted how she was holding Owain so that she had a completely free arm, which she offered to her friend for a hug. Needing the acceptance, Maribelle took the offer, not expecting to be pulled in so closely for Lissa to whisper to her, “I can’t believe this is how you’re telling me that you’re pregnant. At least I waited to tell you until I had some physical proof.”

She went to speak in response, but the words never came to her. Their hug disbanded, and Lissa reopened the door to the house, letting Maribelle follow her inside. Even when the other occupants of the house saw her and greeted her, she couldn’t find it within herself to speak. She was far too dazed from what Lissa had said to be capable of anything more than blank stares and false smiles. Inside, she was screaming at herself for choosing to come here before anywhere else, knowing that Lissa would pick up on anything way before someone else would. How could she have thought it was going to go any differently?

By the time they were in Lissa’s cramped bedroom, just the two of them and Owain, she had no idea of what to say, as evidenced by her silent mouth opening once more. “I know, I know, you’re shocked that I figured it out. That’s exactly how I felt the first time someone called me out on being pregnant. It’s a lot better when people know, though.” Lissa smiled at her friend. “Don’t worry, no one else will look hard enough to figure it out before you’re ready to share the news. Like, for instance, your parents.”

“Oh, my parents finding out at any point would be a death sentence,” Maribelle choked out, covering her face in shame. “You understand, don’t you, my dear? You know how it is, needing to hide such a big secret from everyone like this.” She dropped her hands to reach out to Lissa, but rather than grabbing her friend, she placed her hand on Owain instead. “This child was hidden the same way, wasn’t he?”

Lissa sighed, nodding her head after a moment. “Well yeah, but that’s because I promised Chrom so much and then went against it. I was totally scared of what he’d do to Vaike when he found out. Who are your parents going to get mad at for knocking you up? Some one-time fling guy at school? As if.”

“I’ve never had any promiscuous hookups at school, Lissa.” Not letting go of Owain’s little arm, Maribelle shot his mother a dirty, yet playful, glare. “I’m the moral and chaste one between us, miss ‘I slept with an older man _in_ a school’. Besides, you and I both know where, exactly, the little bundle of joy growing within me was created. And we both know how horrible a turn of events this is.”

Mouthing the name of the first man she could think of, Lissa screamed when she saw Maribelle’s almost impossible-to-see nod. “Oh gods, you’re having Frederick’s child. Maribelle, you know that he’s married!” At the reminder, Maribelle felt tears filling her eyes, ashamed at herself and her friend’s rightful reaction. She let go of Owain and resumed covering her face, trying to hide her absolute disgust at herself, while Lissa stood there, now in the position of needing to find the words to say.

A knock at the door, followed by it opening and Robin walking into the room, was a disruption from the situation—until Robin took one look at Maribelle and clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Nice to see you here, Maribelle,” she said, shaking her head. “Lovely to know that you had at least a bit more self-control than Lissa and myself.” Both blonde women looked at Robin as she closed the bedroom door and leaned up against it. “Although, it would be nice to know, for instance, when this little blessing you’ve been given may be joining us. At least when Lissa accidentally outed her secret, she did it with a doctor’s note.”

“That’s true, I did,” Lissa commented, before blinking a couple of times and looking even more incredulously at Robin. “Wait a second, how do you know Maribelle’s pregnant?”

“Why else would she show up unannounced at this hour?” Robin jokingly asked, repeating one of the very points Lissa had made before. “And then, when we all heard screaming in here that wasn’t the baby’s, I knew this was the only possibility. The men haven’t caught onto this, thankfully, and I think we need to keep it that way. The mother should be the one to tell the father news of the child, not the father’s best friends.”

“Great, so you know that part of all this too,” Maribelle sighed, her shoulders sinking. “How is it that that’s the worst part of everything, yet it’s the part everyone knows?”

Robin laughed. “Because who else, realistically, could it be? Ricken?” At the sound of her other close friend’s name, Maribelle’s shoulders sank further. How was he going to react to finding out that soon both of his friends would be more occupied with babies than anything else? Better yet, how was he even going to find out? She looked to Lissa, who gave a one-shouldered shrug, knowing almost exactly what she was thinking about. “Girls, focus on the matter at hand! We need to get this sensitive information to Frederick in such a way that it isn’t a big deal to him!”

“As if that’s possible, Robin. He will hear of this and call me a life-ruining whore, which I certainly did not intend to make myself into.” Blinking once, tears began trickling down Maribelle’s cheeks, and she gasped for air dramatically before continuing. “I didn’t ask for this, not in this way. I’ve loved and wanted him forever, but not like this…” Her hands moved down to over her stomach, which she grabbed and squeezed a bit. “This poor child here, it’ll grow up in a horrible life with a broken family, and I feel awful for forcing this upon them.”

“There are other options aside from letting it suffer,” Robin reminded her, “like possibly working things out with the father so that there’s at least a little understanding between you. Frederick isn’t a bad guy, and you know this.”

Continuing her dramatic act, Maribelle sobbed, “But he’s going to be absolutely horrendous to deal with on this matter! He will think I’m trying to play him a fool, or ask for handouts, and shun me and his child away permanently!”

“Come on, at least try to be positive about things.” Jostling Owain to keep him in his current state of not crying and intently watching all the ladies around him, Lissa pursed her lips together in thought for a light side to the situation. “Like, uh, the fact that you’re going to be a great mom to a great baby? Isn’t that something good here?”

“A baby that shouldn’t exist, might I remind you? You asking me to be positive about that is a lot like—“ Maribelle was cut off by Lissa actually stomping on her foot, causing her to forget where she was going to instead give a small yelp of pain. “—ouch! Lissa, whatever was that for?”

“It was for you arguing against me. Stop being so negative, please. All that stressful stuff hurts little babies.” Stepping on Maribelle’s foot once more, it was a moment before Lissa spoke again, once again trying to find positives but sighing in defeat when nothing came to her. “I can’t keep talking you through this, I don’t think,” she admitted. “It’s too much like what I went through, minus the part where I was actually dating the guy who, well…”

Listening to the two younger ladies talk, Robin gave a small smile, finding some humor in what she was hearing. “That’s enough talking about your situation, Lissa. If what I’ve heard over the years is to be believed, Maribelle’s father is a lot worse to deal with than Chrom could ever be, and the worst that happened to you when you came clean about things was having to nurse your boyfriend’s head injury for a few days.” She then turned serious, as she had Lissa looking down in shame and mumbling some sort of apology for making things about her. “No, don’t be sorry. You’re being a supportive friend, and that’s what Maribelle needs right now. Together, we can be her support system in this trying time.”

“You’re going to assist me with things?” Maribelle asked, her voice almost incredulous. When she saw Robin’s smile get bigger, she couldn’t help but break out into a grin of her own. “Oh, wonderful! Now when my father threatens to kill me when he finds out, at least I know that I have somewhere to come live until things blow over!”

Not expecting that response, Robin’s smile quickly faded. “Er, I didn’t say that—“

“Oh man, Maribelle’s going to get to live here too?” Lissa’s head perked back up, and she excitedly grabbed one of Owain’s hands, her voice dropping down to a baby-fied tone as she spoke to her son. “You hear that? Your godmommy is going to live with us! Isn’t that cool?” The little boy screeched in response, flailing his other arm and both legs as he did. “I know, I wanna scream about it too!”

“That still wasn’t what I said, but okay.” Robin knew that she had lost control of the situation, and that there was no way she was going to regain any sense of control over it, so she accepted the misunderstanding and took it in stride. “If anything goes wrong with telling your parents, I guess we’ll leave the door open for you.”

Maribelle, still grinning despite the tears actively cascading down her cheeks, thought those reluctant words were the best thing she’d heard all night. “This family is far too good to me, and I thank you all so much. I promise, if it comes to it, that I will be the best temporary house guest possible.”

“Yeah, ‘temporary’ better mean something, unlike the last guest we let in.” Speaking under her breath, no one was able to hear Robin’s sentence, and she preferred it that way. When she returned to speaking to the others, she acted as if nothing was bothering her in regards to Maribelle possibly coming to live with them, once again resuming her helpful and wise nature. “Now, back to talking about telling your parents. You’re not going to, say, wait as long as possible before you say anything, are you?”

“Is there any other way?” Maribelle’s grin faltered a bit, complete with her beginning to wring her hands. “I’m honestly more scared of telling them than I am of telling the father of this child, and let me tell you, I’m terrified of telling him.”

“You have to tell them as soon as you feel comfortable with it. The last thing you want is for one of them to, oh, I don’t know, stumble across some important paper of yours that they weren’t supposed to know about.” Although Robin said it with a laugh, she still managed to make Lissa stop being giddy about the potential living arrangements with the reminder of how she had messed up before. “You have to let them find out on your own terms, whatever those might be.” A pause, followed by, “How long do you have until you return to school?”

School. The word caused Maribelle to freeze in place, her mind rushing to come up with an answer to that question. She was supposed to be finishing up with all the basic classes and taking law school entrance exams in the spring; what was a baby going to do to those plans? “Er, a couple months,” she estimated, “but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Because let me tell you right now, you do not want to be trying to attend classes while you’re carrying a child inside you. It doesn’t end well. Besides, you go to school out of the area, and can you imagine living in one of those small dorm rooms while you’re pregnant? It would be a bad experience for you and baby both.” Robin nodded to herself, trying to catalogue her thoughts to keep spouting advice. “I know your parents are the ones paying for you to go to school, so if you just suddenly stop showing up to class, they’re going to suspect the worst. You have to tell them before that happens.”

“And if I don’t?” It sounded more challenging than she had intended for it to, and Maribelle was not expecting the sharp glare that Robin shot at her for it.

“Then you’ll be out on the street without a word otherwise, and I won’t be so kind as to let you come live here.” The glare dropped, and the kind words resumed. “So let’s think this one through in a smart manner. You need to tell them in such a way that they can’t contest it, but at the same time, you don’t want them thinking you’re lying or something. This may be where taking physical proof to them comes into play.”

“Yes, yes, Lissa mentioned how it was odd that I let her know of this development without such proof. Am I expected to bring one of those medieval urine sticks and shove it in your faces for ‘proof’?” It was a rhetorical question, but something about it sparked a thought within Lissa, who gasped and pushed her son off to Robin’s unprepared arms, just so that she could go rifle through one of her dresser drawers. “Oh, Lissa dear, please don’t tell me you kept your little stick from when you found out.”

Lissa snorted in laughter, still digging through the drawer. “As if I actually used one of those things. Man, I was so afraid to tell myself that I was pregnant that I couldn’t imagine ever having gotten one of them. I’m looking for what I did have, though.” After a few moments of looking, she pulled out what looked like a small stack of paper, but turned out to be a couple sheets of paper folded around several pictures. “Here we go!” she announced, waving it around a bit. “The undeniable proof that totally eventually got me in trouble!”

The outermost piece of paper was one that looked like it had seen better days, one that Robin recognized as what she had initially found that clued her in to Lissa’s situation. That was cast away and the inner piece was unfolded, the pictures inside paperclipped to it so that they didn’t get out of order. Without so much as an explanation of what said paper was, Lissa shoved it into Maribelle’s face, letting her friend read it over herself. “This is a bunch of medical nonsense, darling. I don’t quite understand what the point of showing me this is.”

“The point,” Lissa said, pulling the paper back and grabbing the one she’d tossed away, “is to show you what I consider physical proof!”

“It’s still nothing but medical terms and figures. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” As Maribelle was speaking, Lissa was unclipping the pictures and rifling through them to pick out one in particular, which she held between two fingers to show her friend, who was stunned silent for a second at the image. “Oh, are you telling me that those figures had something to do with that?”

“Kind of, yes. I’m just saying, when I finally did get dragged to the doctor and they got results from the blood tests they did—which were those numbers on that sheet—they were like ‘oh, wow, ma’am, do you want to see your baby because you should be able to’ and I was like ‘okay sure!’ and that was how,” Lissa flicked the picture she was holding, “I ended up with this picture. And if I hadn’t been dumb and forgotten to take better care of my list of appointment dates I had made, I would have used this little picture to tell everyone. Instead, I just got to use it to tell you. Which worked, I guess?”

“I think I understand what you’re getting at with this.” Maribelle leaned in to look at the picture, with the tiny little figure labeled “baby” on it, and shuddered, knowing that when she had an image just like that of her own, she wouldn’t be able to be excited about it in the slightest. “I’m supposed to go in and get some sort of blood test and then use that as proof to tell my parents?”

Robin, wincing as her nephew tugged at some of her pale hair, tried nodding in agreement but the chubby hand holding her hair kept her from doing so. “That’s the safest option, yes. They know you’re not lying, they know you’re being smart about things, and hopefully they will accept it as how things have to be. You, er, should make sure to tell Frederick that same way, if you can. And if possible, tell him soon so that he can be there for you when you get your first sonogram, so that he can see _his_ child at the same time you do.”

“I most certainly will not bring him with me for any of this.” Something was boiling up inside of Maribelle, a rage of sorts. She wasn’t thrilled with having to come to terms with what was going on, but she sure was going to do it, and she was going to do it on her own and with the support of her friends. “He won’t mind, I’m sure. He may actually be thrilled to find out that I want him to have nothing to do with _my_ child.”

“Those are probably the hormones talking. You’ll rethink that one soon enough.” Robin winced again, her hair still getting pulled, before grabbing the hand of the boy and prying it away from his new favorite plaything, predictably making him cry. “You don’t want to be stuck with a child all the time, with no reprieve. It gets ugly.”

Setting her papers back in her drawer, Lissa then took Owain back and started cradling him in her arms, trying to get him to quiet down. “I couldn’t imagine ever having to raise a baby on my own, and that’s saying something, because I don’t exactly get a lot of help raising the one I do have.”

“You both want me to try and work something out with Frederick, don’t you?” Maribelle asked, her mouth feeling odd at saying the man’s name. When they both looked straight at her and nodded, she knew that she had to at least give it a shot. “Okay, I’ll submit. The moment I have ‘physical proof’ I will find a way to show it to him, and I will come up with some solution to this problem that involves him in some way. Happy?”

“Couldn’t be happier to hear you talking such sense.” Opening the door she was leaning against, Robin smiled once more. “Now let’s get out of here before those guys start suspecting something. We’ll get this all straightened out and taken care of in no time if we all work together, I assure you.”

Swallowing down hard, Maribelle nodded. “Understood, Robin. We’ll make this work.” Inside, however, she was hoping that things would only work out in her favor, and that she would ultimately get her way of the situation.

* * *

Whatever those two had been going on about, they were clearly crazy, as Maribelle felt even worse about everything when she held the paper that explained, in scientific figures, that she was a fair number of weeks pregnant. There wasn’t a sense of relief, knowing the hard truth to what was going on; rather, there was an even stronger feeling of guilt coursing through her, making her regret every single decision that had gotten her to the point of her sitting there, in the little office at the doctor’s, completely alone to let it sink in that this was real.

Seeing the numbers on the sheet, after having them explained to her, was enough to make her want to cry, but she stayed strong because she didn’t want to make herself look weak to the helpful doctor who had already done so much for her. This doctor, while unaware of the overall circumstances, was aware that this child wasn’t intentional, and that Maribelle hadn’t been planning on having a child at all, and so everything the doctor had said or done was with comforting the scared new mother. It had been quite nice for her to have a stranger on her side, but at the same time, the fact that this stranger was needed at all was bad enough.

After the appointment was over, and Maribelle was sent on her way with what information she was able to get, plus a referral to come back in a few weeks’ time to get to see her baby, she made it about a block away from the clinic before dropping to her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I-I can’t actually be doing this,” she stammered, clutching her papers to her chest. “I can’t! Please, whatever is out there making this happen, stop with the cruel joke, because it’s not funny anymore!”

There was a moment where, inside of her, it felt like her impassioned plea to her higher deity was working, and then she realized that it wasn’t the hand of divine intervention she was feeling. Without a second to think about what she was doing, she leaned over, spending the next few moments throwing up any and everything inside her—and when she was finished, she felt even more ashamed at herself than she had before. She got back to her feet, shaking from the force of having gotten sick, and began making her way home as fast as she could, a hard task when she was having to stop to throw up every couple of minutes. Had she been able to borrow her parents’ car for the endeavor, it would have been easier, but she knew that they would find a way to track where she’d taken it, and she couldn’t risk that. Walking was not her preferred method to get places, but when it was a sensitive matter such as this one, there wasn’t much of a choice otherwise.

She ended up walking herself down past the high school she’d attended, the building dark and empty as the teachers were still on their summer vacation. She couldn’t help but think of some of the teachers and staff as she went past the building, her thoughts wandering over who all she knew that worked there. At first, her thoughts lingered on her dear Lissa, and how she was such a great friend and an even greater nurse for the school, but then those thoughts turned to others, eventually resting on the stern face of Frederick, which made her shudder to think about. Clutching the papers tighter to her chest, she pushed all thoughts of him out of her mind and went back to focusing on walking and her eventual destination.

It was decided long before she walked by the school that she was going to end up at Chrom’s house, so walking by there had just been a precursor for what was to come, as every adult living in that house still worked at that school. Like always, Maribelle knocked at the door, expecting her best friend’s blue-haired older brother to open it for her, but when it was Lissa who came to the call, she was surprised. “Oh hey, Maribelle,” Lissa said, opening the door wide to let her friend in. “No one else is home right now, so I guess it’s just going to be us and Owain if you want to stay here for a bit.”

“A bit would be lovely, I’ve had a long walk to get here and I need to talk about what’s happened to me with _someone_ before I beat myself up over it again.” Taking her friend’s offer, Maribelle ducked into the house, Lissa closing the door behind her. The first thing she saw when she came in was her best friend’s little boy sitting in the middle of the living room floor, watching the older ladies intently as if he wanted something from them. In reality, he did, because no sooner had Lissa sat down on the couch, offering Maribelle the seat next to her, did Owain start whining, holding his arms up to signal wanting to be held.

Trying to get a serious conversation done with the boy around was hard, because he didn’t want to be sitting on the couch with his mom and her friend. They had to postpone getting any talking done until he was satisfied, which meant that they had to relocate to Lissa’s bedroom, and Owain had to be held by Maribelle, not his mother, just for there to be a chance of talking. “What’s going on? Why did you have to walk over here?” There was clear concern in Lissa’s voice, even more evident in the way she had scrunched up her mouth as she asked. “Maribelle, please tell me you didn’t get kicked out already.”

“Oh, no, not yet. Haven’t been able to face my parents about this. Just got the damning evidence today.” Maribelle bounced Owain on her leg, pleasing the child, while she tried wrapping her head around the fact that soon enough she’d have a baby of her own to do that to. “I can’t fathom telling my parents, as they’ll simply call me a no-good whore and disown me from the family. And telling Frederick…ugh, I can’t imagine how I’ll be able to do that in a way that he won’t blame me for it all.”

“You’re focusing on negatives again. You really should stop doing that so much. Listen, I know it sucks that you’re in this situation, but things will work out just fine if you let them.” Now Lissa was reaching towards the papers Maribelle had brought with her, trying to see what they were for herself. It took a moment of fighting with her reluctant friend to be able to do so, but once she could see them, she smiled. “Hey, you’ve still got time to figure all this out! I totally wouldn’t worry about telling your parents or the baby’s dad until you can tell them that the baby is completely fine and all that, which you can’t do right now. So don’t stress out so much about it!”

“What do you mean, I can’t do that right now? It’s living inside of me, isn’t it? Shouldn’t that be proof enough that it’s fine?” Maribelle didn’t want to have to sit through the following explanation, just like Lissa didn’t want to have to give it, but what followed the questions was a long story of potential things that could have been wrong with the baby, things that wouldn’t be able to be discovered until Maribelle went back to the doctor like she had been told to do.

It was enough of a reason to keep her from talking to anyone else about the baby, aside from those who already knew of her being pregnant, for a few more weeks. This didn’t stop her, however, from freaking out the moment that she did get a visual of the tiny child growing inside of her, knowing that _now_ she was going to be expected to tell everyone what was going on. Telling almost everyone wasn’t going to be a problem, but for those few people who it would be a problem to tell, she would rather die than have to talk to them about it.

Going to Lissa for advice before anyone else was the only idea she could come up with, and so she had to walk from the clinic to her friend’s house once more (as she was still terrified of her parents finding out where she was going if she borrowed their car). The walk went a lot better than it did the first time she’d done it, in regards to her being able to keep the contents of her stomach where they belonged, but this time she was panicking about the reality that she had a lot of people to talk to about something bad.

When she knocked on the front door, she heard someone call from inside for her to just come in, a new experience in all the times she’d come over unannounced. Opening the door, she found the living room full of people that definitely did not live in the house; while Chrom, Robin, Lissa, and Vaike were all there, they had several other people there joining them, including Ricken (who smiled when he saw Maribelle), and everyone else who had been at that party that night. She froze when she stepped inside, feeling everyone’s eyes digging holes into her, and she felt like turning around and running away. How could she have come into a place with so many unknowing people, including one of the three people she was most scared of talking to?

“Uh, hey there, Maribelle! Glad to see that you got done with whatever it was that was keeping you busy today!” Lissa loudly greeted, jumping to her feet and nearly running to her best friend’s side. “Why don’t we go talk for a moment, in my room, so that I can catch you up while everyone else talks?” The way she was speaking was rushed, as if she knew that something bad was going to occur if Maribelle stood there much longer, and so the newcomer nodded in agreement with her friend’s words.

They made it a couple steps towards the hall before they were stopped in their tracks by the one person present that Maribelle didn’t know: “Excuse me, Lissa?” they said, voice soft and gentle, and both ladies turned to look at the speaker, with their long blond hair and patient face. “Perchance, may you tell me who this lovely guest of yours is, so that I know what to talk to them about when you two are done speaking?”

“Right, I really should do that.” Lissa looked around at everyone who was present, everyone that she knew already knew who Maribelle was (minus the person asking), and said, in one breath, “This is my best friend and to-be maid of honor Maribelle, and now we’re going to go talk so bye.” Before the person could ask any follow-up questions, Lissa was pushing her friend down the hall and to her bedroom, which they entered with the door slamming shut behind them. “That could have gotten bad had Libra tried asking anything else, so let’s be thankful he didn’t get the chance.”

“That was a _he_?” Maribelle’s voice, full of shock, was quite loud, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if the group in the living room was able to hear her clearly. “My word, Lissa, why on earth is such a feminine male in your house right now?”

“He’s the one officiating my wedding, that’s why. He did Chrom’s as a favor to Emmeryn’s memory, and now he’s doing mine because he feels compelled to.” Collapsing onto her bed, Lissa laughed. “It’s really funny, he’s a super sweet guy and cares a lot about me and Chrom because he loved our sister so much. He was, like, Emm’s personal religious guide or something, I don’t even know. And now he’s doing this for me.”

Maribelle nodded, leaning up against the door to keep anyone from opening it. “Sounds lovely. What was that about me being your maid of honor? Did you forget to tell me that was a thing before you told him?” In her heart, she had known that was how it was going to be, but still, hearing it be told to a crowd before she was informed of it herself felt a bit odd.

“D-did I forget to tell you that?” Lissa sat up, kicking her legs over the side of her bed as she did. “I’m so sorry, Maribelle! I guess I just assumed you’d have figured that, and that you’d be on board with it and everything! You are okay with that, right?”

“Of course I am!” Smiling, Maribelle felt at peace for just a moment, before a thought came creeping into her mind. “Er, when are you planning on your wedding being?”

The first thing Lissa did was slowly shrug, before explaining: “I wanted it to be right in between Vaike’s birthday and my birthday, but that would put it right in the middle of the week and Chrom was like ‘we’re not closing the school for a day so you can get married’ so we thought about it a bit more and I guess right now we’re aiming for Valentine’s Day? Which is super romantic but I—“

“You can’t get married then!” Without thinking for a second about how she was coming across, Maribelle shrieked at her friend, catching Lissa completely off guard. “First of all, it’s a bad omen to have your anniversary be that romantic holiday! Secondly, if you want me as your maid of honor you have to reconsider that date, right now!”

“I do? Why do I have to? You’re not going to…oh.” Knowing that people in the living room definitely heard Maribelle’s screaming, Lissa felt she had a few moments before someone would be trying to check on them. “I guess if I really want my best friend there for me, I probably should make it so that she’s not, uh, having her baby that same day, shouldn’t I?”

Reaching into her purse to pull out the pictures she’d been given at the doctor that day, Maribelle gave a small nod. “Yeah, that would be wise. Funny how their projected due date for this little demon happens to be the same day you intend on getting married. Of course, from your experience, I know that it’s only a projection and the little sucker might as well hang in there as long as it likes, but it’s best to err on the side of caution here.”

“So I guess we’ll just make it closer to my original idea then. Thanks for letting me know this now instead of later, Maribelle. You’re a real friend.” Lissa saw that Maribelle was offering her the pictures she’d procured, and reached out to take them, but at that exact moment the door was pushed open, setting Maribelle off-balance and having her stumble forward, dropping her pictures as she did.

“What’s goin’ on in here? Heard all that screamin’ and figured somethin’ awful was happenin’ in here. Had t’come check, obviously.” Vaike watched as what Maribelle was holding fell to the floor, and his immediate reaction was to slowly blink, trying to remember where he’d seen something like that before. “Er, why’re things like that bein’ passed around in here? I thought you two came in for some talkin’, not for some memory sharin’.”

Once again, without taking a moment to think about what she was saying, Maribelle snapped, “They’re not memories if they’re current events, dumbass.” This elicited a gasp from Lissa, followed by Vaike going wide-eyed and stepping away from the door, leaving it wide open as he walked back to the living room, having accidentally just been told something that may or may not have been the truth.

“I have to stop him from telling everyone!” Lissa jumped back to her feet and ran out of the room, following her fiancé to hopefully get to him before he got to everyone else. As she collected the pictures that had been dropped, Maribelle tried to understand what the big deal was, until she realized that, despite his less-than-intelligent nature, Vaike would have been able to correctly assume that those belonged to her and would be able to tell everyone her news before she got the chance. Rather than going to follow Lissa to try and stop him, she shrugged it off, knowing that her best friend would handle the situation.

That was, until she heard a chorus of yelling and confused exclamations, followed by what sounded like a stampede coming towards the bedroom, and the only thing she could feel was a dreadful sickness coming over her—causing her to bolt from where she was to the nearest bathroom, locking the door behind her to keep everyone out. “Oh no, we’re not doing this ‘locked in the bathroom’ thing again,” she heard Chrom say, as someone (presumably him) began knocking on the door. “Maribelle, you get out of there right now. You have some questions to answer.”

Had she not been actively throwing up, she gladly would have given Chrom some sort of sassy answer explaining why, exactly, she would not get out of the bathroom. Instead, on the other side of the door, Lissa did the honors of telling her brother off. “She doesn’t have to answer anything she’s not ready to answer! Don’t force her to speak until she’s ready!”

“Oh, and we should listen to you here because…? You did this same damn thing, and it’s not the way to handle this situation.” The knocking got louder, as Chrom became more enraged at what was happening. “Get out, this instant, before I break down this door and drag you out here myself.”

“And that’s no way to speak to someone who’s just scared and unsure of what to do.” That was Robin, inserting herself into the situation. “Unlike with Lissa, you’re not allowed to bully anything out of Maribelle, and so I believe you really should step back and return to the living room right now, Chrom.”

The knocking ceased, and Chrom sighed. “You’re right, Robin. As much as it may seem like it, Maribelle’s not my sister and I can’t get concerned over her like I did for my actual sister.” He seemed to step away, but just as Maribelle thought she was in the clue, she heard him yell, “Why can’t you girls just stay away from my friends?” before being presumably shooed off by Robin.

“I guess this is a bad way to say that everyone figured, from the moment you being pregnant was brought up, that Frederick was one the one responsible,” Robin softly said, her face close to the door so that Maribelle could hear her. “He didn’t seem to react when the accusations started flying, but I think you should maybe talk to him about this as soon as you can.”

“I sh-should, yeah,” was the sickly reply that Maribelle managed to get out, coughing right after. She heard the doorknob to the bathroom jostle, and after debating whether or not to chance unlocking it, she went ahead and let whoever was out there in. She had figured it would be Lissa or Robin, so it came as a surprise to her when the person who walked inside to speak with her was none other than the man who had put her in this situation.

“Is it true?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest as he looked down at her. “I’d heard stories of what supposedly happened to result in us waking up together in a bedroom at my parents’ house, but I never once believed them. Should I have, though? Should I have believed that you got to me when I was defenseless and got what you wanted all along?”

She felt her lower lip quavering, something inside her compelling her to get sick again, but she tried her hardest to stay strong and speak to him. “I guess you should have, yes. Listen, I know this is going to be _so_ hard to explain to your wife and child, but…”

“But what? You aren’t expecting me to leave them to be with you, are you?”

“No, of course not! I just want you to be there for the kid, at least. T-that’s all I can ask.” The nerves were getting to be too much for her to handle, and she could feel herself wanting to gag and throw up once more. “Don’t take out my problems on m—our child.”

“I would never imagine doing such a thing to someone innocent like a child. My problem here lies with you, not with what’s within you.” Frederick sighed, looking at the pitiful sight of how Maribelle was crouched around the toilet’s rim, as if she was just waiting to get sick again. “Just don’t take this as a sign that we could ever be together, because it won’t happen. I will do my duties as father of this child, but nothing more for you.”

With that, he stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving her there to cry to herself about how bad things were. She might have just said that she wanted him to be around for the child, but doing that would involve having to see him again, and at that moment, the last thing she ever wanted to do was face him. When she finally collected herself enough to leave the bathroom, she was greeted outside by three smiling little girls, only one of which she’d ever seen before. The sight of them was enough to make her perk up a little bit, as they all were grinning at her like she was the greatest person they’d ever seen, but then she saw that the smallest one, with tiny little blonde pigtails, was holding what looked like one of Owain’s toys, and then she heard the unmistakable wailing of her godson, clearly distressed that someone had taken something from him.

“Okay, which one of you three has it?” Lissa loudly asked, coming down the hall after the little girls with Owain crying in her arms, but stopping all movement when she saw that Maribelle had left where she’d barricaded herself, allowing for the three girls, Lucina at the head of the group, to run off. “Oh, hey look, you’re all better now. Mind helping me chase down a naughty little child who keeps bullying my baby?”

“You mean the little blonde one? She had what looked like a death grip on one of his toys.” Lissa gritted her teeth and nodded, her son crying harder in her arms, and Maribelle frowned at the sight. “Who was that child, anyway? I have never seen her or the brown-haired one before, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time here. They looked like perfect little partners-in-crime for miss Lucina to have.”

“That’s because they are perfect for her to be bossing around,” Lissa muttered, bouncing Owain in her arms to try and get him to stop crying. “She thinks it’s so funny to tell those other girls what to do, when all it does is make me so angry! At least Cynthia knows better than to listen to her, thankfully, but ever since we started planning this wedding and Libra’s been bringing his baby Severa around, it’s been nothing but trouble.”

“So that’s who the troublemaker belongs to, but who does the…” Her voice trailed off as she realized the answer to her own question. “Oh. That Cynthia girl, she isn’t, by chance, Frederick’s child, is she?”

Lissa looked downcast for a second, eventually nodding in response. “Yeah, she is. I guess that makes her your baby’s sister. Is…it okay that she’s hanging around here?” In her mind, Maribelle was screaming at her friend that it wasn’t okay, but she knew that taking out her mixed feelings on an innocent child wasn’t the right way to act. She eventually said it was fine, making Lissa smile a bit. “I promise that I’ll try to keep her far away from here when you’re coming over. For now, though, let’s go after that little Severa and get Owain’s toy back from her grubby little hands!”

At least chasing small children was a small escape from the horrible situation looming overhead, and Maribelle was thankful for that.


	3. Maribelle and Lissa Make Bad Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: abusive behaviors

Hiding her secret from her parents during the summer months was easy, as Maribelle had so many places that weren’t at home that she could spend her time. Her first choice of location was quite obviously wherever Lissa was, but if for some reason she was unavailable (which happened frequently as the summer droned on and work training began), then going to spend time with Ricken was her second choice. Having already had to go through the “my friend is becoming a young, unprepared mom” thing before, Ricken was incredibly understanding and offered everything he could to Maribelle, including his undying and unwavering promise to always be around if she needed him. With good friends like the ones she had, maybe she would be able to get through things if they got ugly when she got around to involving her parents.

As summer drew to a close, so did Maribelle’s easy way of skirting around her parents and their potential questions. Gone were the days where she could leave in the morning and come home late, all in the name of avoiding her parents, whom were surely beginning to suspect something was amiss with their dearest daughter. It all came to a boiling point one late August day, while Maribelle was sitting in her spacious bedroom, going through a collection of her pictures that she’d taken over the course of the summer—naturally, she had posted them on her social media outlets, and she was trying to see which ones were most popular. It was a near tie between a picture of her godson from his first birthday party, where he had absolutely demolished his slice of birthday cake and gotten it all over himself, and a split-screen picture of herself in a tiny bikini, showing off her “perfect” body with the sonogram image of what was baking inside of her right next to it.

She was so busy mentally calculating which one was more popular that she didn’t hear her bedroom door open, her father walking in with one question in mind: “Maribelle, isn’t there somewhere you should be right now?”

The sound of his voice caught her completely off-guard, and she dropped her phone at the sound. “N-not that I’m aware of, Father. Everyone’s either busy or gone, so there isn’t much for me to go do.”

“That is not what I meant, miss. Your mother and I do not pay for your education for nothing.” He looked around the room, noting how it seemed like his daughter had put zero effort into packing her life up to head back to college. When he looked back to where Maribelle had been sitting, she was no longer there, having gotten up in an attempt to sneak out of the room to avoid having this conversation. “Maribelle, where do you think you’re getting off to now? We need to discuss this truant behavior of yours right now.”

Predictably, she ignored him, causing him to become more frustrated with her. He commanded for her to stop where she stood, and she did, turning to look at him with tears in the corners of her eyes on her pale face. “I’m going to be sick,” she groaned, a hand covering her stomach as the other moved to block her mouth. There was a moment of him staring her down, while she started shaking, the feeling of being nauseous getting to be too much for her to bear. She broke the stare, running off to her personal bathroom to throw up, all while he watched her flee and assumed the worst. Rather than actually checking on her to make sure she was okay, he left the room, finding his wife so that they could discuss what was occurring in their daughter’s life. Together they went back into Maribelle’s room, at about the same time she was returning to her original position of sitting on her bed, still feeling sick but well enough to not be huddled around her toilet any longer; she took one look at her mom and dad both coming to talk to her and a new feeling of dread came over her, knowing this was the end of her secret.

“Why are you still here at home?” her mother calmly asked, trying to remain as non-confrontational as possible. When Maribelle didn’t answer her, she changed her tone that was much more accusatory. “Is this your way of telling us you’re dropping out of school to…to…become some lowlife streetwalker?” Her husband gasped at his wife’s pointed words, and Maribelle began to look horrified at her mother assuming and suggesting such a thing. “I thought we raised you to respect yourself, not to sell your body to scummy men on corners!”

“I’m not a prostitute, Mother,” Maribelle replied, her voice small and scared of the reaction she was going to get. “And I’m not dropping out of school to become one. I just, uh, can’t go back.” More accusations were flung, all of which were now acting under the assumption that she couldn’t return to school because she had somehow managed to fail classes. “Oh my gods, I didn’t flunk out! I really just can’t go back!”

Her father took a deep breath, rubbing at his temples before saying. “Who do we need to call to gain your acceptance back into the school? No child of mine will be denied an education if I can help it.”

“There’s no one to call, because it’s my choice not to go back.” Cue two shocked gasps, all while Maribelle felt the familiar sense of getting sick come over her. She swallowed down hart, trying to keep her stomach under control until her parents were gone. “I’ll resume classes next fall, no worries. I just need some time off.”

“That’s a bad plan, but as long as you hold yourself to it, there’s nothing for us to be worried about.” Her father forced a smile. “Good to know there’s nothing else going on here, correct?” When the corners of his smile turned up more into a sly smirk, Maribelle knew that he was aware of there being other circumstances, but to what extent she couldn’t be sure. She laughed it off though, telling him that he definitely was right, which was clearly the wrong answer to give, based on his huffing sigh.

However, he wasn’t the one to outright call her out on her lie. That honor went to her mother, whom seemed sickeningly proud to be able to look straight at her daughter and say, “Then what have you been doing hanging around such places as motherhood clinics? That dirty whore of a ‘best friend’ of yours get herself into more trouble?” Maribelle felt like lunging at her mom for that cruel insult aimed at Lissa, who hadn’t done anything wrong here, something she knew was going to happen when this conversation occurred. She had to think fast and decide if she was going to play along with the misplaced blame or if she was going to set her mother straight, a decision that was made for her when her mother started making more digs at Lissa and the bad choices she’d made before.

Legs trembling, Maribelle stood up, shaking her head at every word leaving her mother’s mouth. “You’re wrong, Mother!” she yelled, eyes going wide in surprise at her own actions. “I’m not there for Lissa or for anyone else but myself!” Watching as both her parents fell into a shocked silence, she covered her mouth with both hands and started breathing heavily, the reality of what she had just done hitting her fast; there were proper ways to announce an unplanned pregnancy to one’s parents, and yelling about it at them was not one of them.

All her father said was that he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. Her mother stormed towards her and forcibly, despite Maribelle trying to shirk away, lifted her daughter’s shirt to inspect for any possible visible evidence of this news being the truth. When she couldn’t see a definite change in appearance, she took one of her ice-cold hands and smacked Maribelle’s stomach, the impact enough to cause her to nearly throw up in her hands that still covered her mouth, all while the spindly, ice-cold fingers got a feel for the tensed muscles and physical changes happening within the young woman. “You make me sick, you ungrateful brat,” her mother spat, smacking her daughter again. “We’ve done nothing but support you and help you achieve in life, and this is the thanks we get. A college dropout, unmarried skank of a daughter who couldn’t be bothered to keep her legs closed. Did you once think of this family’s reputation?”

She whimpered a response, but her hands muffled it and her mother ignored what she could hear just to keep berating her. “No, of course you didn’t. You set out to do what you wanted, no care in the world about how it would affect anyone else out there. Now wherever your father and I go, we will have to answer to questions about how we could raise such a disgusting tramp as our daughter. And do you know what we’ll say?” She leaned close enough into Maribelle’s face that every ounce of fear in her scared pink eyes could quite literally be measured. The fear only intensified when, after smacking her a few more times, her mother’s cold hand began caressing her jawline, moving onto her shoulder before pushing her forcibly backward, sending Maribelle back onto her bed. “We don’t _have_ a daughter,” her mother finished, turning as she spoke. “Get out of our house and our lives.”

The second she heard the door slam shut, both parents leaving the room together, Maribelle broke down into heavy tears, crying harder than she had in a very long time. When she collected herself well enough to speak, she took the time to call someone to come help her grab her things and leave, and despite how much she wanted to call Lissa, she chose not to so that more fighting would hopefully not occur.

When there was a commanding knock at their front door an hour or so after the incident in their daughter-not-daughter’s bedroom, Maribelle’s mother shrugged it off as unimportant, while the man of the house went to check for who it was, scared the girl upstairs had done something rash like calling the police on them. He was genuinely confused when he opened the door to see the principal of the high school his daughter had attended, standing there while looking simultaneously furious and ready to fight. “Er, what brings you over here today, sir?”

Chrom narrowed his eyes at the man, who flinched when he did. “Your daughter called my wife, crying for help to get away from this place.” Behind Chrom, actively on the phone with someone, Robin gave a small wave to the man standing in the doorway before pushing past both him and her husband, entering the house without express permission. “And so we’re here to help her. Have any other questions?” The man, looking uncomfortable and threatened, took a few steps back and called for his wife to come join him.

“What could possibly be going on out there?” she yelled back, making her way to the doorway as Chrom walked inside, also uninvited. She didn’t look as confused as her husband had at the blue-haired man’s appearance, but she did raise her eyebrows at him. “Listen, if you’re here begging for money for your half-rate school, find someone else. We have no obligations to assist establishments like yours.”

“H-he’s here because _that_ girl got him involved,” her husband quickly stammered, flinching back even further when he saw Chrom stiffen up at what he heard. “Dear, m-maybe we should go spend time in the sitting room, and let the good man take care of his business…”

“What business? As far as I can tell, he’s intruding on private property, most likely here to ask us to support his school so that they can keep producing students meant for nothing more than the streets.” The woman laughed, the sound high-pitched and grating to Chrom’s ears, as he narrowed his eyes further. “I say we give him a few minutes before we show him what happens to naughty intruders.”

“I’m not here for school matters,” he corrected, stopping the laughter with his serious tone. “In fact, I’m surprised you don’t know why I’m here. I would have figured that Marib—“

“Don’t you dare speak that wretched name!” Raising her voice to overpower anything Chrom was trying to say, the woman swung a fist in his direction, only missing because she stopped herself at the last second. He went from glaring at her to looking rather inquisitively at her fist, which was hovering mid-air rather close to his face. “Sorry, sorry, let my emotions take control of me there for a moment,” she apologized, retracting her hand. “I was certain you were going to be speaking of something forbidden in this household and I began to react without much thought.”

While he tried to come up with a way to respond, upstairs Robin was standing outside of Maribelle’s closed bedroom door, her phone still pressed to her ear. “I’m right here, if you’re okay with me coming in,” she said, not letting her voice be heard by the people downstairs (although she certainly could hear the almost frenzied screaming drifting upstairs at times). “I understand that you’re having a moment, but…”

The call went dead, and Robin sighed, reaching out for the doorknob before she saw it turn without her touching it, the door opening slowly and the sound of sniffling hitting her ears unobstructed by the phone. “It w-was so bad, Robin,” she heard Maribelle quietly say, despite not being able to see her. “My mother was just so…not understanding.”

“After how much you seemed to dread having to tell her, I’m not surprised in the slightest by that turn of events.” Stepping inside the overwhelmingly pink bedroom, Robin waited until she heard the door close to speak again, but when she never heard the latch, she grew worried, turning to look to see what the holdup was. She was confused to see that the door had been opened even more, Maribelle hiding herself behind it. “Okay, I get that you’re insecure about people seeing you when you’re upset, but you don’t have to hide yourself from me. I’m here to help you, remember?”

“You are, I know.” Maribelle gave a shaky sigh, pushing the door closed and looking anywhere but at the woman she had just allowed into her room.

“Where did that handprint come from?” Her voice barely more than breaths, Robin put a hand to her mouth in shock, resisting the urge to run to the younger woman’s side to investigate further. “Is that what you were trying to hide? Do I need to hurt whoever laid a hand on you?”

Maribelle’s lower lip wobbled as she rapidly shook her head, moving to pull her shirt back down to cover the impossible-to-ignore mark that had been left on her stomach. “No, p-please don’t hurt who did it. She wasn’t thinking straight when she hit me.”

“It was your mother, wasn’t it.” Not a question, nor did Robin intend for it to be one. She was making a statement, based on what she had been told in the teary phone call, as well as what she had heard coming from downstairs. Maribelle gave a small nod, shrinking back towards her door a bit, and Robin couldn’t help but feel absolutely horrible about the situation she’d been invited into. “Maribelle, has she done this before? Hurt you like that, I mean. I can—and do—assume she’s yelled at you like this before.”

“She has yelled before, yeah.” Casting her eyes downward, Maribelle walked towards Robin but moved right past her, heading towards her closet that had been opened, several empty bags sitting in front of it. “But never hit me. Maybe I’d never made her angry enough to deserve it? I would always put on my best behavior when she’d raise her voice and she’d stop, but this time there wasn’t even the time to make her stop.”

Robin exhaled deeply, moving her hand from over her mouth to running across the top of her head. “That’s not exactly a loving mother thing to do, you know. None of that. I don’t know how she could yell nasty things at you, and I definitely can’t understand how she’d hit you hard enough to leave that kind of mark. This isn’t the kind of environment you want to be raising a child in.”

“Then it’s a g-good thing she kicked me out, isn’t it?” Rubbing at the spot where she’d been hit, Maribelle looked at her bags and everything she was expecting to fill them with. “I don’t know how I’ve gone from being my parents’ little princess to not having parents at all in so little time. It’s not right.”

“That’s what having a baby out of wedlock can do to you. Now let’s get to packing what you think is most important, while we keep discussing exactly went down in here. I’m genuinely curious if we can get her in trouble for what she’s done.” Robin heard the gasp Maribelle gave at the final comment, and while it was heartwarming to know that the girl didn’t want to punish her mother for hurting her, it was heartbreaking for the exact same reason.

Downstairs, Chrom was still having to deal with two parents who were insistent that they not only didn’t have a daughter, but that they had no idea of what he was doing at their house. He would try to explain that it was because of Maribelle, but as soon as he uttered the first syllable of her name, her mother would cut him off, demanding he not speak of her at all. “I don’t get it,” he finally said, looking between the couple with an almost exasperated expression. “She’s your pride and joy and you’re acting like you don’t even know she exists.”

“That girl has done nothing but ruin our family’s reputation with her deplorable actions,” her father gave in and explained after much scuffling and trying to dodge the point. “She is not a member of this family, nor will she ever be.”

“Ah, I see what you’re getting at now.” Chrom nodded, feigning understanding while at the same time coming up with a plan to get them to explain more. “What, exactly, did she do to ruin your reputation? I’m fairly certain you’re still one of the wealthiest and most respected families in town, no matter what she did.”

Her mother, a scowl on her face, did not seem pleased as she recounted what she felt was the true turn of events: “She went out and whored herself to anyone who would give her attention, and as a result, turned into an incubator for some bastard child. It’s a stain on any socialite’s reputation to be known as the parent of a prostitute, as anyone who dares interact with such scum is nothing less than scum themselves.” She paused for a second, before looking at Chrom with a disgusted expression. “And as you are here to willingly interact with her, this makes _you_ scum, sir.”

“I’m here to interact with her as a friend, not as…er, whatever you think I’m here to interact with her for.” Chrom had made the mental note to tell everyone at home later that apparently drunkenly sleeping with one guy had made Maribelle into a prostitute and a whore, but that was quickly forgotten after watching her mother roll her eyes and mutter something about how he was lying. “I most certainly am not lying about my intentions here today. She called my wife asking us to help her, and that is what we’re here for.”

“Oh, of course, you and your darling wife are here to help that slut pack up her things and move in with that even trashier best friend of hers, aren’t you?” Clasping her hands together in front of her like she’d just had a great idea, the woman didn’t notice Chrom’s eyebrows furrow and his mouth fall slightly agape. “Let the girls who think they’re mature enough to ruin their lives live together, naturally! What a perfect plan!”

“Yes, yes, perfect plan indeed,” her father repeated, chuckling to himself. “Imagine the look on the poor sucker who raised that other girl’s face when he realizes that his little sister’s taken in a fellow whore, hm?”

He had looked to Chrom for some laughs, and was not expecting to see his face completely red in anger, eyes closed and nostrils flaring. “The look you’re looking for,” he managed to say, completely calmly, “is the one you’re seeing right here. How dare you speak of my little sister like this right in front of me!”

All humor in the situation completely dissolved as Maribelle’s parents finally made the connection that the principal of the high school happened to be the exact same man that was the older brother of their daughter’s best friend. “W-we didn’t mean a word of that, honestly,” her mother started, before her father added, “We were just looking for some laughs, nothing personal!”

“Nothing personal, except everything personal! I have had to listen to you berate your own damn daughter for something that is not that big of a deal in the end!” Chrom was fuming, angrier than he had expected he’d be getting while on this rescue mission. “I have been in your exact shoes before, finding out that a young woman in my life was having a child while unmarried, going against everything she’d been raised to follow. But I didn’t start calling her names like ‘whore’ and ‘prostitute’ when she did it, and I definitely didn’t kick her out for it! I accepted her and her mistakes and helped her move through them! I was a better parent than two actual parents are!”

His yelling was loud enough for the ladies upstairs to hear every word of it, and so Robin cracked open the bedroom door so that they could continue listening but feel like they were meant to be. “Maybe it’s for the best that you’ve kicked her out, because at least now I get the chance to be someone that’s actually there for her. All these years of having known the poor girl, and this is the first time I’ve realized that she’s been living with two people more concerned with their social status than their own daughter! I’m glad I’m taking her in, because she deserves so much better than either one of you! She deserves someone who’ll love her like a little sister, not an object!”

Up in her room, sitting in the middle of a pile of belongings she was having to pick through, Maribelle started crying once more at the sound of Chrom’s passionate declaration. “Shh, it’s okay, there’s no need to cry over how much Chrom cares about you,” Robin said, looking away from the clothing she was folding to give a comforting glance at the woman. “He wouldn’t have offered to come here with me if he didn’t feel that way.”

“I never knew he loved me like that,” she admitted, wiping tears from her eyes. “I knew he cared, certainly, but to hear him say he’ll love me like I’m his little sister, that really means something right now.”

“You know how much he adores Lissa, and you know that he always has loved her, despite her mistakes. He loves you that same way.” She heard a few more sobs, and Robin had to actually wipe a tear from her own eye because of listening to Maribelle, so she added, “And, well, Chrom will never hurt you like your mother did. He broke a door and a table when he found out Lissa was pregnant, but he never once laid a hand on her the way your mother did to you. You and the baby both will be much, much safer at our place.”

The idea of actually being safer in a living space that wasn’t the home she’d grown up in was unreal to Maribelle, but she accepted it because it was Robin telling her it, and Robin would never lie to her like that.

* * *

The first rule about staying at Chrom’s house was that, under no conditions was Maribelle going to become anything more than a temporary houseguest. She was merely staying with them until they could find a better place for her, whether that meant that she was going to return home or find a different place to crash. This was understood by everyone, minus the children of the house, one of whom was far too young to even begin grasping the concept of a guest. The other child, seeing her aunt’s friend sleeping on the couch every night, tried to offer her room and her bed to Maribelle, but was always told to stop. If Lucina was fond of someone, it was always assumed they would end up staying with the family longer than expected, but it wasn’t meant to be in this situation.

In fact, it was barely mid-September when Chrom wanted to kick Maribelle out, just for being herself. It wasn’t like she did anything but sit around the house, but she had a sense of entitlement about her that she didn’t feel was being fulfilled, and that was becoming grating on everyone’s nerves, most especially Chrom’s. All he had asked for her to do one day was to watch his daughter while he and Robin ran some errands, so that they didn’t need to pay someone else to do it, and she complained for nearly an hour straight about how she felt she was being relegated to nanny rather than just a house guest.

“It’s not like I’m making you pay to live here,” he reminded her, getting her to shut up in a huff. “I could easily start charging you to live in my house, if that’s what you want. Because that’s what it’s starting to sound like you want.” She swore up and down that it wasn’t what she wanted, and so she did the babysitting duties without issue. The dispute weighed heavily on Chrom’s mind for a few days, as he debating on what to do about Maribelle and her temporary residency in his house. Ultimately, he decided to let her stay; in the back of his mind, he told himself that the moment she gave him a good reason to kick her out, he was just going to have to do it.

They moved past the disagreement and weeks went by, Maribelle still sleeping on the couch every night as if that was where she was meant to be. On days when everyone was gone and she was left at the house by herself, she felt bad that she wasn’t doing anything with her time, but she’d remember that she had no way to get anywhere but by food, and with her now-visible stomach bump growing ever-so-slightly bigger every day, she didn’t feel motivated to walk anywhere. This made the days when people were available all the more special, because they could take her places and give her the activity she craved.

There was one day when everyone should have been at the house, but when Maribelle woke up after a night filled of baby-related nightmares, she found that there was no one around by Lissa and Owain. While her best friend and godson were great company, they weren’t the company she’d been hoping for that day. “I’m so sorry, Maribelle,” Lissa apologized, before explaining what she knew: “Robin and Lucina are out having a mommy-daughter day, and Chrom and Vaike went, uh, somewhere, I guess.” She shrugged, peeking out her bedroom window to look at what was or wasn’t in the driveway. “Wherever they went, someone had to have come and got them because the truck’s still out front.”

A glimmer of an idea filled Maribelle’s eyes. “The truck, you say? Maybe we could use—“

“Are you crazy? Neither of us are allowed to drive Vaike’s truck!” Lissa looked almost like she’d just been asked to kill someone, not like she’d just heard a bad suggestion. “Chrom’s not even allowed to, and he’s the one who bought the thing! The only person ever allowed to drive it is Vaike, and since he’s not here, it’s not happening.”

Maribelle rolled her eyes, realizing that she was talking to someone whose only rule breaking experiences had ended in disaster. “Listen, I know he loves that truck almost as much as a child, but he’s not here right now so how would he ever find out if we simply borrowed it for a few hours to go do something?” When she was met with silence, she figured she’d made her point, but then she saw that Lissa was stone-faced, sternly shaking her head at the idea. “Oh come on, Lissa dearest. Live a little.”

“The license plates have his name on them for a reason, Maribelle! He can tell if someone’s moved anything in that truck even slightly, so I’m sure he’ll know if we borrowed it for a day out!” Lissa would have continued giving reasons for why this was a bad idea, but she knew how Maribelle was, and if her heart was set on doing something, she was going to do it. “You’re going to be in so much trouble if you do this, I hope you know.”

“And if I get in trouble, it’ll be worth it, because I got to spend a day out with my best friend,” Maribelle said with a laugh, putting a hand on Lissa’s shoulder. “Besides, Vaike’s too much of a softie to do much beyond tell me not to do it again. Now shall we go through with this, or are you still too chicken?”

Giving an exasperated sigh, Lissa reluctantly nodded. “I guess we shall. Might do little Owain some good to get out of the house to go somewhere that’s not the park or the school.” As if he had heard his name be said by his mother, the little boy raised his arms and screeched, running off to somewhere in the house that wasn’t the bedroom. Before chasing him down to get him ready for their day, Lissa brushed her friend’s hand off of her and asked, “What are we going to explain this trip as? Just saying we wanted to go out isn’t going to work.”

“Well, if he loves you even half as much as he claims to, he should be fine with that answer. But if we need to lie we can just tell him that I felt like you needed to do some wedding window shopping, and I saw some lovely one-day-only sales that we couldn’t miss out on.” The way Maribelle grinned as she gave her answer brought some peace to Lissa’s hesitant mind, but it still didn’t feel like enough for her to believe the plan would work. “Okay, and we could tell him that dear godmommy Maribelle felt the need to spoil darling Owain a bit.”

“That sounds like something Vaike would believe in a heartbeat,” Lissa said, finally giving in and smiling at the idea. “Let me get Owain ready and we can do this. Just a few hours though, because we totally can’t risk being gone when everyone comes home, or else there’ll be more trouble than needed.”

“No trouble is needed at all, Lissa, but I agree, we should only be out for a few hours. We can’t let our wandering minds and shopping desires keep us out too late.” The best friends shared a smile, before they set off to get ready to head out for the day; after they were dressed and presentable for an unplanned shopping trip, Maribelle grabbed the keys to the truck off the dresser in the bedroom and the three set out on what was no doubt going to be a great adventure for them.

In theory, anyway. No sooner than everyone was securely fastened into their seats and Maribelle was trying to back the obnoxiously large truck out of the driveway did she almost drive it straight into the garage instead. After fixing that issue and successfully getting on the road, she almost took out a mailbox and a parked car on the street. But after all that, it was smooth sailing across town to the little mall there in town, an eyesore in an otherwise well-off neighborhood. She did very nearly hit several cars as she was trying to park the truck, causing both herself and Lissa to be panicking about their decision to come out on their own, but when the truck was off and they were both standing on solid ground, everything seemed to be perfectly fine.

“Remind me to never let you drive me anywhere again.” Nudging her friend with her elbow, Lissa snorted in nervous laughter. “You had me so convinced that we were going to be perfectly fine and that we could do this without getting caught, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to get the truck home with scratches and dents and Vaike is going to kill us both for damaging what’s rightfully his.”

“It’ll be ok _ay_ , Lissa. Stop worrying so much.” Maribelle laughed as well, although much more confidently, nudging her friend right back. “I was just rusty at driving, and to be behind the wheel of something that size when I never have been before, it was a learning experience that I can confidently say I passed. We’ll be perfectly fine on our way home, I guarantee it.” Lissa looked at Maribelle with an unsure expression, which only made her laugh more. “You are being way too scared about this. What happened to being fine with this?”

“What happened was your iffy driving skills, that’s all.” Her laughter stopping, Lissa turned from her friend to instead look down at the little boy walking beside her with rapid steps, his hand firmly secured in her own. “I don’t want anything bad happening to us while we’re out, not because I’m scared of how Vaike’ll react, but because I don’t want anything to happen to my precious baby.”

A realization dawned on Maribelle that she was surprised she hadn’t had hit her before, about how Lissa would naturally be less inclined to taking risks if the safety of her child was involved. “Nothing’s going to happen to him, seriously. We’re going to be fine and we’re going to have fun today. Simple as that.” She was speaking like she was guaranteeing her words, but she was beginning to doubt what she was saying. Her hand moved to being over her stomach, almost in a protective stance, which made her wonder if she was just as worried about the safety of the baby within her as her friend was worried about the child beside her.

“Maribelle, what if something goes wrong, though? What if?” Lissa’s voice was showing her fear, although she certainly wasn’t expressing it in any other way. “We shouldn’t have come out today. You shouldn’t have convinced me to do this. It’s a bad idea.”

“What, do you want to turn back and head home now?” Stopping where she stood, Maribelle looked behind her to see how far from the truck they had walked, before looking ahead of her to the mall’s entrance which was steps in front of them. “Or do you want to actually make something of this trip? I’m okay with going back if you really want to, but I think we need to suck it up and accept that we’re here and that we’re going shopping.”

Lissa kept looking at Owain as she tried to decide what she was going to do, but her decision was to tug him forward a bit and sigh. “No sense in wasting what we’ve already started, I guess. Let’s make the most of what we’ve got here today, and worry about what all could have gone wrong later when we’re back at the house with all our new stuff.”

“That’s the spirit, Lissa!” Maribelle punched upward with her free hand, before continuing walking forward. “Now what do we do first? There’s so many places we could go today, and we don’t have time to go to them all. Do we go shopping for you? For me?” A pause, as she began grinning. “Or for Owain? I think we should hit some stores for him first!”

“You know I can’t turn down the offer of you spoiling my baby, so let’s do that first, and if we end up having time we can do the other things.” Tugging the boy’s arm again, Lissa crouched down to get more at his level, telling him, “Your godmommy’s going to buy you some new things today. Isn’t that cool?” He replied by nodding and laughing, not actually sure what was being said to him but understanding enough to know that he was being asked a question of some sort.

Despite the cuteness of the exchange, Maribelle’s hand that was still over her stomach clenched a bit, a feeling of worry beginning to fill her. Something was telling her that being out like they were wasn’t going to go as well as she was hoping it would, but she wasn’t going to let that feeling ruin her day. Besides, she spent enough of her time being overcome with these sorts of feelings that she wasn’t going to listen to one that was only slightly concerning, unless it was telling her she was about to get sick (which did happen several times over the course of the trip to the mall). Nothing bad was going to happen, and that was the end of that train of thought.

The day went on, and the trio went through nearly every store in the mall, first visiting the children’s clothing stores, then moving on to ones that were more appealing to the two ladies—although they both did have a lot of fun looking through kids’ clothing. Purchases were made, money that shouldn’t have been touched was spent, and the number of bags they were having to carry with them only seemed to multiply. By the time they made it to the only wedding boutique in the mall, they barely had any way of getting through rows of dresses without their bags getting caught on something, and so they had to postpone looking at anything relating to what Lissa was going to wear on her big day for the next time they came out to the mall. As they were leaving that failed attempt at browsing, Maribelle noticed just how dark the sky outside was looking, thanks to a skylight above her head. “I didn’t know it was supposed to rain today,” she said, before her words struck her like lightning. “Oh gods, that dark sky out there isn’t rain clouds, is it?”

“Dark sky…?” Lissa repeated, looking up at the very same little window as she did. She did a double take at what she was looking at, before becoming very panicked. “We spent all day here when we weren’t supposed to! We are so dead when we get back to the house. I bet Robin’s home already and looking for us, and if she is, she’s going to rat us both out to Vaike before we can get a chance to not get caught!”

Maribelle sighed, understanding her friend’s panic and also getting a bit worried herself, but not wanting to dwell on it because she didn’t want to end up distressed and sick once more. “Let’s just get back as fast as we can then, shall we? No stopping at any more stores, just get back to the truck and then go. Maybe no one’s home and we can beat them all back, even with our trip lasting a lot longer than we had anticipated.”

“I doubt it, but there’s no point in arguing about it because we’re just wasting time now!” If it were socially acceptable for her to run through the mall to get back to the entrance they’d come in through, Lissa would have done it without hesitation. But she was too grown up for that, and she never would have been able to get Maribelle to go along with it. She was clearly getting restless as they walked back to the door they used to enter, occasionally jumping forward a bit but having to wait for her friend to catch up. “Why are you going so _slow_?” she asked, her impatience getting the best of her. “We’re getting deader every minute we waste here!”

“With everything I’m carrying right now, you’d be crazy to get me going any faster than this,” Maribelle replied, not changing her pace even slightly. “Besides, if we go too fast, you’ll end up tiring Owain out more than he is already, and I doubt you want to have to carry him as well as all those bags.” Not coming up with a rebuttal, Lissa hung her head and kept to being close enough to Maribelle’s walking speed, which meant that their time getting back to the truck was much longer than she had wanted. But after they got every bag secured and the barely-awake child back into his seat, they were getting into their spots and figuring out the quickest way to get back to the house.

There were two routes home, the longer one, length-wise, that had higher speeds, or the shorter one that went much slower. Not thinking much about the road conditions of the way that let them go fast, Maribelle picked to go the longer way home, and was predictably frustrated when they were halfway back across town and sitting stopped at a light that had no intentions of changing in her favor. It felt like they’d been sitting there forever, watching an empty intersection with no other cars present at it, when she had what was most likely the worst idea she could think of: she was just going to go for it, traffic laws be damned.

Naturally, she didn’t say a word about what she was doing until she was already slamming her foot down on the accelerator, sending the truck speeding through an intersection where they did not have the right of way to be making the turn she needed to—and when they were halfway through the turn she noticed the glow of what seemed like headlights coming straight towards them.

There was barely a moment to react, and she reacted by pushing her foot down harder, hoping by some blessing from the gods above that they’d make it through without any issue; the sounds of screeching tires, shattering glass, and bending metal were enough to let her know, in her adrenaline-fueled mind, that there very much was an issue. One moment, she was looking at the street she wanted in front of her, illuminated by headlights that weren’t her own, and the next, she was sitting in a smoky truck cabin, an eerie silence filling the air around here. She was shaking, her entire body trembling, as she moved to make sure that she was okay, checking her arms and face for any sort of injury from what she assumed was the airbag in the steering wheel going off in front of her.

When she didn’t find anything wrong with herself, she glanced over at her passenger, who was sitting in a daze, not moving but clearly still alive based on the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, Maribelle could see that the back of the truck was ripped apart, but to what extent she couldn’t tell because her main focus was locked onto Lissa’s face. Her best friend’s currently blood-covered face.

So much for nothing going wrong with their adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy howdy do I love ruining Maribelle's life. sorry for the cliffhanger but we had enough emotional distress in the beginning of this chapter, we didn't need more of it at the end


	4. The Girls Face Repercussions From Their Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: blood

What exactly had happened hadn’t even begun to settle into Maribelle’s mind as she stared almost in horror at Lissa, waiting for her friend to say something to let her know she was okay. But when she didn’t speak, or move at all minus her faint breathing, it began to panic Maribelle more than she already was—to the point where she, with her shaking hands, reached over to touch her friend just to make sure she was okay. Lissa’s skin was still warm, but she didn’t react even slightly to the touch of trembling fingers.

In the distance, sirens could be heard coming closer and closer to the accident scene, but Maribelle was far too worried about making sure that Lissa was okay to have it register that those sirens were coming for them. “L-lissa?” she choked out, her voice barely above a whisper as she found it hard to breathe, let alone speak, in the dusty and smoky air. “Y-you okay there, m-m-my friend?”

As expected, there was no response, but she did hear what sounded like a male voice asking if there were still people in the front of the truck. She ignored the speaker, still focusing everything on her friend until she knew that she was okay; it was then that she realized that they weren’t sitting flat on the truck’s wheels, instead being tilted forward to the point that the truck had to be resting on its windshield. Retracting her hand, Maribelle instead reached forward to where she should have been looking at the road, finding nothing but cold asphalt and shattered glass instead. She screamed, her mind finally catching up to the fact that she’d wrecked the truck that she’d been driving, and the panic of needing to get out as fast as she could started to fill her.

“Hey, you’re alive in there!” the male voice said, and she saw a hand reaching in through the shattered driver’s side window, coming in at an angle that would normally be impossible to obtain. “Here, let’s get you out of there and make sure you’re okay. Wrecks like this happen more than they should, but as long as you’re okay—“

“I’m n-not the only one in here! I killed my best friend!” Maribelle yelled in response, scrambling to get herself unbuckled as fast as she could. Her panic was enough to cause her to forget that gravity would send her falling down towards what used to be the roof of the truck, but she was in such a scared state that she didn’t feel any pain from landing on her head, her legs getting caught under the steering wheel as she fell. Once again screaming, she tried righting herself but only found herself looking out the back of the truck, where there used to be an entire seat and truck bed that was now missing. “Oh gods, I killed her son too!”

“Ma’am, it’s going to be okay. Just get out of the truck and we’ll figure this all out, one step at a time.” The voice was calm and collected, although the speaker was nearly as panicked as Maribelle was, and despite their good intentions she couldn’t find it within herself to listen to them. She was moving on to shaking Lissa, trying to get the other woman to react to something, anything, just to know that she wasn’t dead. This behavior was stopped by a bright light being flashed into the truck, followed by many voices discussing the proper course of action to get both the ladies out of the truck.

Part of Maribelle wanted them to help her out, but the majority of her being was focused on getting herself out so she could look at what she’d done. Taking the hand of the truck driver she had accidentally turned in front of, he helped break open the door on her side and get her out, her feet caving out from beneath her once she was standing on solid ground. Despite this, she refused the help of the paramedics instantly, telling them that they needed to focus on Lissa more than her, that she could be helped once her friend was okay. By all means they should have ignored her and forced her to comply with their assistance, but she was too busy trying to get back to her feet to look around, and when they asked her to stay still, she snapped, “I have to find my friend’s son before someone else does!”

Alerting them to the presence of a third person potentially injured in the accident was most likely the best decision she could have made there, in all honesty. With the support of the truck driver and one of the paramedics, they got her standing and led her around the wide crime scene, from where the truck’s front half had landed after rolling several times, across the intersection to where the back half had been pushed after being ripped away. Littering the space in between was not only metal scraps and glass, but pieces of bags and clothing that had come out of the back of the truck. She was crying as she saw all of that, but she was completely inconsolable when they made it over to the back of the truck and were accosted by several police officers, asking about what had happened.

It was during the time where the truck driver, in a completely clear state of mind, was explaining what he had seen happen that Maribelle noticed that the backseat of the truck, having been cleanly ripped off of the front half, looked to be mostly intact despite being upside down. “There’s a kid in there,” she said through her sobs and tears, leaning most of her weight on the paramedic supporting her. “My godson, my b-b-best friend’s baby, he’s in there and he’s probably dead and this is all my fault and…” She broke down crying to the point of being unable to speak clearly after that, but her words were enough to get the paramedic to call for help in retrieving the child who was potentially trapped.

They were in the process of flipping the seat to see what was inside when an unfamiliar car drove up to the accident scene, police flanking it as they tried to explain to the driver that the intersection was closed. But when the car shut off and from inside of it came familiar faces that Maribelle could recognize even in her emotional state, she knew that the worst had happened and she was most definitely in trouble now. “Someone stole this truck from my family,” she heard Chrom explaining to one of the officers, “and we’re here to make sure that our names are—Maribelle.” Distracted mid-sentence, he saw the crying blonde and assumed the worst. “Never mind what I said. It seems like someone I know took a personal joyride in this truck and wrecked it.”

The next thing she was honestly aware of was Chrom grabbing her by the shoulders, her truck driver and paramedic companions stepping away to allow him to do so. “What in Naga’s name is all this about?” he asked, voice stern and terrifying to her panicked mind. “Why are you out here? What did you do? Where is my sister?”

“W-we wanted to go to the mall,” she started explaining, before breaking into heavy sobs. “And then it got late and we got scared of the trouble we’d face for being out so I was careless and ran a light and we got hit and…and…” Her eyes squeezed shut and she lunged forward to hug Chrom as tightly as she could. “I killed her, Chrom. She’s dead and it’s my fault and—“

“She’s _dead_?” Pushing her off of himself as violently as he could, Chrom didn’t care that he nearly knocked her to the ground. “You killed my little sister? Your best friend? How could you?” Watching as she was stumbling to regain her balance, tearfully choking out explanations, he inhaled deeply, his chest and shoulders rising as he tried to resist chewing her out, ultimately failing at the endeavor. “We leave you two alone at the house for one afternoon. One! And this is what happens, a nighttime crime scene where you’ve managed to kill my sister!”

“It wasn’t on purpose…” Her words were drowned out by her crying, which was intensifying by the second. Even in the dark, she could look at Chrom’s face and see nothing but fear and anger in equal parts, and she knew that it didn’t matter what she said to him, she would never be forgiven for what she had caused. “I…I…Lissa wa—is my best friend and I would never hurt her on purpose.”

“She _was_ your best friend until you killed her!” No longer able to resist getting physical with his actions, Chrom took a swing at Maribelle as she cowered in front of him, but was restrained by the friendly truck driver, who begged him not to do it on her behalf. “Why should I take mercy on this ungrateful girl who’s taken the only sibling I have left away from me? I’ve done nothing but be kind to her, especially as of late, and this is how she repays me.” Even being restrained, Chrom was still trying to punch at her, and she had fallen to her knees, hands clasped before her, sobbing her pleas for forgiveness.

“Chrom, leave her alone.” The voice was one that Maribelle never would have expected to hear in this moment, especially not asking for her to be spared. “What good will taking your anger out on her do for you, aside from taking away one of the last pieces of Lissa you have?” She saw a hand being offered to her, but unlike when the truck driver offered her his hand, she had no intentions of ever accepting this one from Frederick. “Please, Maribelle. Let me help you up so we can discuss what’s happened here.”

“I’m not taking any help from you,” she replied, keeping herself situated on the cold asphalt. “Let Chrom kill me. It’d be better at this point.”

The crew working on flipping the back half of the truck started making noise at that point, distracting everyone from what Maribelle was doing as they looked to see why the truck was being flipped in the first place. To hear Chrom gasp and mutter, “Oh gods, please say that’s not what it looks like,” was enough to make Maribelle’s heart sink further down inside of her, shattering into a million pieces as it did. She was then forced back to her feet by both Chrom and Frederick, which she tried resisting for as long as she could before she gave in to what they wanted. “How come you never mentioned that Owain was with you both?” Chrom asked, his voice still angry but now completely distraught, as he looked down at her with disgust. “Involving my sister was one thing, but him too?”

“I-it was Lissa’s idea,” she said, trying to keep her eyes closed so that she couldn’t see anyone or anything around her. “And n-now she’s dead and he’s…he’s…”

She felt a hand grabbing underneath her jaw, forcibly turning her head in some direction, and then she heard Chrom order for her to open her eyes and look at something. She did, slowly letting her eyelids flutter open to see the disaster that used to be the backseat of the truck. Paramedics were readying a stretcher and all the machines associated with keeping someone on the brink of death from succumbing to their injuries, while a few worked tirelessly to extract the child from the carseat he’d been strapped into. It was a lot to take in, especially with her being in her state of mind, but she knew she would never forget the worried expression on everyone’s faces as they worked, nor would she forget all the blood and the sight of the boy’s arm, bent completely out of shape and almost completely dark from the blood running down it.

Blinking a few times, she felt the hand holding her head pull away, followed by both men who were keeping her standing letting go of her. She once again fell to her knees, but this time on the way down, she felt something inside of her trying to come up, and so she hit the ground and started vomiting from what she had seen and the fear she was feeling. She would retch and heave, which would become followed by cries of wondering what had gone wrong, and the emotional distress only upset her stomach more than it already was. For what felt like forever, she huddled there on the ground, sick from her own actions, and then she heard probably the best thing she possibly could have at that moment in time: she hadn’t killed either of them after all. At least, that was how things stood at the current moment.

One of the paramedics had come from the ambulance they’d put the young boy in to let her know of this news, at the same time that she heard a heartbreaking scream from across the intersection. The scream, followed by gut-wrenching calls for the boy by his name, was enough to make Maribelle feel even worse about the situation than she already did; but when she heard the running footsteps and saw Vaike making a mad dash for the ambulance before it left, she knew that no matter how bad she currently felt, nothing could compare to what that poor guy was having to go through. She felt sicker just thinking about what kind of pain she’d inflicted on him, and he hadn’t even been present for the wreck.

After throwing up again, barely missing hitting the paramedic who had come to tell her about Owain’s condition, she watched as he headed back to his ride and took off, sirens blaring in the still night. That left her there alone, to look around in the dark at all the destruction her stupid decision had caused, until the friendly truck driver came back to help her to her feet once more, walking her over to where the other ambulance on scene was, around which a small group had congregated. There she was questioned endlessly about what had happened and about whose fault everything was (which she admitted to without hesitation), after which she was told that if anyone _were_ to die from the injuries sustained there, she would be held completely liable.

She solemnly nodded at the reminder, knowing that being responsible for someone’s death in a car wreck was still killing someone, despite circumstances. On the other side of the truck driver, whom was still keeping her on her feet, the duo of Chrom and Frederick seemed to have questions to ask the police officers on scene. Their time to ask things was cut short when, in the back of that second ambulance, they all heard a familiar cry, followed with, in slightly slurred words: “Where am I and where is my baby?” Covering his mouth, Chrom’s eyes went wide at the sound of his sister being so scared and panicked.

Before he had the chance to say anything, however, Maribelle let out a long sigh, shifting her weight onto the side that had the man supporting her. She had been intending to say something to break the bad news to her best friend, but her leg buckled out from underneath her and she fell, her support not being able to catch her in time. Finding herself on the ground once more, she sighed again, not even asking anyone for help as she slowly curled herself into a ball and started crying once more. “I h-h-hurt her baby and she’s going to hate me forever,” she choked out, “and if he’s not okay sh-she’s going to hold it against me and my baby and—“

“Maribelle?” Despite being on the ground and being a tearful mess, she was still able to be heard from inside the back of the ambulance, and now Lissa was trying to talk to her. The other woman still sounded like her words were being garbled, like something was wrong when she spoke, but she tried anyway. “What happened to us? We were going home and now what’s going on? Where are you? Where is Owain? I need answers!”

The blonde on the ground, at the sound of her friend’s baby’s name, started crying harder, burying her face into the crook of her arm in shame. After shaking his head at what was happening, Chrom broke into an explanation of what he knew the story to be, including every detail he could manage. His sister gasped several times at what she heard, but nothing could compare to the tangible sadness in her voice when she said, “You mean he’s hurt and I’m not there to be with him?”

“You’re hurt too, Lissa. Don’t forget that.” Now Chrom was beginning to spit his words again, his anger at Maribelle coming back to fuel his explanation. “You can’t exactly go visit your kid when you need almost as much attention as he does.”

“I don’t need any attention!” she replied, but after a few seconds, her tune had changed and she let out a terrified shriek. “Oh gods, what’s happened to m-my…face?” While she was most likely having the situation explained to her by the people with her in the back of the ambulance, Chrom was glaring down at Maribelle, as she was still crying on the ground in front of him.

“You have fun dealing with the fact that you broke my sister’s face.” He kicked at her, only stopping at the last second because of his friend motioning for him to not do it. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft on this excuse of a person, Frederick. She’s ruined your life nearly as much as she’s ruined Lissa’s.”

For the second time that night, Maribelle got to be witness to kindness being shown her way by the man whose child she carried within her. “I wouldn’t say it’s ‘soft’ on her, Chrom, but I won’t allow you to hurt her more than she already is. This has been a stressful night for everyone, and I would hate for this to have any adverse effects on _my_ child. You attacking her could harm the child.”

“I never expected you to care about that kid, but hey, I’ll listen to you.” Now looking back to where his sister was, Chrom let out a weary sigh. “I can’t believe this has happened. When Robin called to ask if we were okay, I never thought that we’d end up standing at this kind of crime scene, with someone I’ve been nothing but nice to being the one responsible.”

“Yes, well, as evidenced by her, er, non-wreck caused physical state, she is prone to making mistakes.” Frederick stood up a bit straighter, rubbing at his arm awkwardly as he did. “I cannot believe I’m the one making excuses on her behalf, but perhaps you should show her some mercy on what has happened here?”

Chrom raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest as he did. “I’ll show her mercy the second I get a call saying that this is all some elaborate prank and that this family’s not being forced to pay for fixing all of this,” he replied, sighing once more. “Or I’ll show her mercy when everyone more affected than me does. Might be a while. I’ve known Vaike for a great many years and I’ve never once seen him break down like that…”

“You and I both, Chrom.” Now it was Frederick’s turn to sigh, as he looked around at the scene surrounding them, before letting his eyes linger down on where Maribelle was still curled up. “Do you think we should assist her now, or would you rather we let the professionals handle her?” He didn’t get a response, as Chrom was busy trying to get some words in with his sister before she was taken away, which left him just staring at the blonde on the cold ground. “I’m ashamed that of all the women in this world that I could have gotten into trouble with, you were the one I got stuck with,” he said, listening to her cry and babble unintelligible words at him. “You must hope that no one dies tonight, because I will not allow my child to know a murderer of a mother.”

Even over her crying, she heard him walk away, followed moments later by Chrom also heading off to presumably get back in the car and head over to the hospital to meet everyone else there. Everyone else except her, she realized, as she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage to get there; that was answered for her when the paramedics helped her into the back of the ambulance that was still sitting there, beginning to check on her and all her potential injuries that she’d been ignoring in her panicked state. The whole time, while she was being asked questions about what had happened and the like, she kept stealing glances over at Lissa, who was also being questioned but at the same time was having her face attended to by some of the medical staff. Whenever Maribelle could actually see her friend’s face, she could see some of the damage that _she_ had caused, making her feel sicker than she already did about everything.

By the time they made it over to the hospital, Maribelle had thrown up twice, and would have several times more had she not started to have to keep her mouth closed to refrain from screaming out in pain, her body finally registering that she’d been hurt in the wreck. This led to, when getting them out of the ambulance and into the building, both ladies being taken to the same room, which already had one member of the group who’d come to the accident scene there waiting for them. While the nurses and doctors began getting a closer look at their new patients, their lone visitor sat and watched, stunned silent by something that he’d seen; the first moment he had where there weren’t any doctors present, he moved right to Lissa’s side and broke down into heavy tears, trying his hardest not to look at her.

“Hey, what’s so wrong that it’s got you crying?” she asked, her words even more slurred than they had been before, a result of her facial injuries becoming swollen. “Come on, tell me what’s going on, Vaike!”

He tried to explain, but all that happened was his mouth moving with no words coming out, until he pointed a finger over at Maribelle and let loose with his thoughts. “She tried killin’ our kid, that’s what’s goin’ on! Came over here with ‘im, listenin’ to him scream while they were tryin’ to keep him from bleedin’ out all over everythin’, and now they’ve got him somewhere that we ain’t allowed, and…and…” Overcome with emotion, he dropped his finger and started crying again. “Lissa, they were sayin’ he ain’t ever gonna be the same again after this, and it’s all her fault.”

Reaching towards her fiancé with one hand and her broken face with the other, Lissa looked as if she was about to start crying as well. “I didn’t realize anything was actually wrong with my baby,” she mumbled, as she ran her fingers over what had been disfigured on her face. “I thought it was just me who’d been hurt, not him…”

“Excuse me, but I’ve been injured here as well,” Maribelle interjected, earning two tearful glares in her direction. “Yes, yes, I know, no room to speak because this is all my fault, but it needed to be said.”

“No, you’re right, and we needed to hear it.” On top of already being slurred, Lissa’s voice was now wavering with how upset she was. “I guess we needed the reminder that we all got a little messed up here.”

“A li’l messed up? You clearly ain’t seen what happened to Owain then, ‘cause that’s far beyond just bein’ a li’l messed up.” Vaike was shaking, his whole body trembling from just how upset he was. “Can’t believe this happened. When Chrom said someone stole the truck and wrecked it bad enough to be on the news, we thought it was someone actually stealin’ the damn thing, not anythin’ like this. Losin’ my truck’s one thing, but seein’ the love of my life hurtin’ like this is another, and none of this is as bad as knowin’ that they’re sayin’ Owain might not ever be right again after he gets better from this. If he gets better.”

Still touching her face, taking note in the severe crook in her nose that hadn’t been there before, Lissa blinked back tears listening to what Vaike was saying, before adding her own thoughts. “He will get better, he’s gotta! We can’t have gone through so much just to lose him because of something like this! It was just a little car accident, right? He’s got a few bumps and bruises but that’s what me and Maribelle have too, so he’s gotta—hey, hey, why are you crying again?” She was derailed by Vaike and how he had started crying once more listening to her speak, and by the time he got through explaining _why_ he was crying (that was, because she had no idea just how bad the accident had been), she was sobbing just as hard, leaving Maribelle there to listen to them both.

It only got worse when Chrom and Frederick got there, bringing with them everything they could from the wreckage. For Maribelle to see them holding armfuls of purchases she’d made earlier in the evening, it dug into her more than the sounds of crying she’d been having to listen to. Even still, they managed to top that sort of emotional damage by dropping all the various clothes and whatnot against the wall, only for Chrom to show that he had grabbed the license plate off of the truck. The crumpled metal was not damaged enough to make the letters on it unreadable, making it an unfriendly reminder that the truck that had been wrecked had actually meant something to someone that was present. If Vaike hadn’t already been emotionally compromised because of the people in his life being hurt, the proof that one of his few belongings had been destroyed was enough to make him break down further.

She already felt disgusted at herself for what she’d allowed to happen, but Maribelle really felt like she was scum of the earth for ruining so much for so many people.

* * *

The repercussions of what had happened went a lot further than just the physical aspect of things. While it was undeniable that something very wrong had happened, judging by the beat-up appearances of the two ladies, even after their injuries began to heal and fade, there was always a lingering reminder that the accident had happened. This, of course, was only made worse by the fact that even after they were both allowed to go home (which was the next day for Maribelle and the following one for Lissa), they were still ending up at the hospital every single day for the next month.

Or, rather, Maribelle was ending up there, as Lissa never really left. From the very moment that she could, she stayed by her son’s side, taking what had happened to him incredibly personally and wanting to be there for him as often as she could. Despite everyone telling her that he wasn’t going to know if she was there or not, she made it a point to spend every night there in his hospital room, waiting for the moment when she knew her child was going to be okay after what had happened to him.

It pained everyone to see Lissa in such a state of motherly protectiveness, but no one was more hurt by the sight than Maribelle was—because she knew that it was her fault. She knew that if hadn’t been for her being insistent and stupid, the wreck wouldn’t have happened, and the poor child wouldn’t have had to have multiple plates put in his arm and hand to keep them functional. He wouldn’t have needed to be put into a medically-induced coma while his small body tried to recover from the various chest injuries he’d sustained. He wouldn’t have been given machines keeping him on the right side of living, including ones for breathing and eating.

Every day when she’d get dropped off at the hospital to spend time reflecting on what she’d done, Maribelle would seclude herself in the furthest corner of the room, looking out the window rather than at the mother or child in the room with her. She had spent many hours in the time since the accident talking to Lissa about what had happened, but it didn’t erase the fact that it was like looking at a different woman when she looked at her friend’s face, one changed by injuries and grief. So when they’d talk to each other while in that room, it was always done with Maribelle looking out the window and Lissa looking at her sleeping child, both of them wanting so much more than to be talking to one another.

They may still have been best friends, but until Owain woke up there would be a rift between them, one caused by Maribelle harming the innocent child the way she did. Despite that, however, Lissa wasn’t one to jump to blaming Maribelle for what had happened, reminding everyone that she was just as guilty about everything, minus the part where the truck had been wrecked, and therefore if someone was going to blame Maribelle, they needed to blame her as well. There wasn’t a single soul in the world that would actually do that, however, not when Lissa was having to suffer so much more than her friend.

But even though Lissa might have forgiven Maribelle, it didn’t mean that everyone else had, nor did it mean they would. The first night after the accident, when she was back at the house, Chrom had flat-out told her that she was going to be kicked out due to what had happened, but he was going to give her enough time to figure out some new arrangements as to where she could live before he sent her on her way. This led her to start asking around to everyone she knew, wondering if anyone would give her a chance so that she wouldn’t end up out on the street mostly dead. She was so desperate, she actually asked Frederick if she could stay with him (the answer was a firm no), but she wasn’t anywhere close enough to try asking her parents. She ended up talking to Ricken about the situation, and after he got over being upset with her that she could have killed Lissa or Owain, he referred her to his parents, who were willing to give her a space at their house.

With that taken care of, she moved into Ricken’s bedroom, which was empty due to him being away at school, and the healing process for everyone back at Chrom’s house could really begin. Except, of course, for the fact that Maribelle was being taken over to the hospital by the family now taking care of her, and so anyone who came in to visit Owain would have to deal with her being there. For the most part, she was ignored entirely, but there were occasions when Robin would come with and spend time talking through things with Maribelle. Even in this dark situation, Robin was a caring friend who wasn’t going to judge someone for what they’d done, and that was what Maribelle needed.

This was especially true because of some of the dirty, disdainful looks she would be given by some of the other visitors. Chrom would glare at her every time he saw her, and she could hear him mutter things about her under his breath, a habit that Lucina picked up with every visit she made alongside her father. To hear the little girl grumble about how Maribelle was a dirty murderer was almost as painful as having to hear the steady beeping of the machines keeping her godson alive, and that was much more painful than, for instance, the torn muscles in her leg that had been her only injury in everything. The mental aspects to the accident were leaps and bounds worse than the physical ones for her, and that only solidified that fact.

However, the nastiest things Chrom could have said about her didn’t cut nearly as deep as the absolute silence she was receiving from Vaike, who hadn’t spoken to her since the hours after the accident. He was so wrapped up in making sure that his little boy was going to be okay that he didn’t care about anything but his fiancée and his son when he came into the room; there were days where Maribelle would get dropped off at the hospital and Vaike would already be there before her, and he wouldn’t have left by the time she did. Through some of her conversations with Robin and Lissa, she learned that he wasn’t obligated to work at the time, and if he felt that spending time by his son’s side would be a better use of his time than working, he was allowed to do that. It did leave the school without one of its two gym teachers when their only substitute was already having to fill in as nurse, but it was understood and accepted.

The month dragged on, nearly every day being the exact same thing. The only times the routine differed were on days that Maribelle had to go do something else for part of the day, and as she was now reliant on two busily-working adults for getting her around everywhere, if she had something to do that wasn’t sit at the hospital, everyone had to alter their plans a bit to accommodate everything. In an appointment a few days after the wreck, right after Maribelle had moved over to Ricken’s house, she had been given the chance to find out what the child within her was, but she declined the offer at that moment, wanting her best friend to learn the news the same time she did. The doctor had responded by remaining gender-neutral about the baby, while giving Maribelle a sealed document that had the information inside of it for when she was ready to know.

Her thought had been to walk straight down to the hospital and open that document there in the room with Lissa, but two things were stopping her: one was her leg, which was bandaged to the point of it being unable to be bent, with the purpose of keeping her mostly immobile, and the other was the fact that Lissa wouldn’t care at that moment. So she spent all day waiting for her ride to come get her, impatiently waiting to be able to open the document and find out what her little one was going to be.

The very next day, when she was up in the hospital room, she had brought the paper with her and was going to open it, but Lissa stopped her. “Not while _my_ baby’s not awake to hear it,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I want to know when he can know.” If Maribelle wasn’t already hoping for little Owain to wake up, that was enough incentive to make her wish for it harder. That only made the dragging feeling that month had feel worse, because she was not just waiting to see her godson lively again; she was waiting to know what the life inside of her was. She understood what Lissa’s reasoning for wanting to wait was, though, and she was going to do her best to respect it.

It was just over a month after the accident when the day felt different from the moment Maribelle woke up that morning. Maybe it was the way her child was attempting to tumble around inside of her, or maybe it was the way she felt, for the first time in that month, like she wasn’t hurting so bad anymore, but there was a strange feeling to the day. The feeling only became worse after she got over to the hospital and found the entirety of Lissa’s family up in the room already, crowding around the bed. They were so focused on Owain that they didn’t notice her enter and hobble over to her chair, where she sat and watched them doing whatever. “Today might be the day,” she heard Lissa tell everyone, hints of excitement in a voice that had been so permanently sad as of late. “They said they’re done keeping him under and that he can wake up whenever he’s ready.”

“Are they sure that’s a good idea?” Robin asked, being interrupted mid-way through her question by Lucina demanding to be picked up so that she could see her cousin. “They’ve been saying that his injuries were quite bad, but do they really think he’s healed enough to be able to handle the pain while conscious?”

“He’s mostly better, I guess, so maybe?” There was now hesitance in Lissa’s voice, as she really thought about the question she’d been asked. “I mean, he’s got two totally strong parents so he should be able to handle it. And it’s not like he’s going to be going home today, so…” She trailed off, and when she started talking again, it was clear she was on the verge of crying. “It’s still going to be a long while before he’s back to being himself. First waking up, then breathing and eating on his own, then we get to bring him home. Small, baby steps.”

“I miss him bein’ the first thing we hear in the mornin’, Lissa. Can’t wait for that to be how it is again.” Vaike was most definitely crying already, and Maribelle watched as he rested his head on the top of Lissa’s as he hugged her close to him. “It’s about time he wakes back up and we get to see his smilin’ face and hear his ramblin’ stories that make no sense to us but we love ‘em anyway ‘cause it’s Owain tellin’ us somethin’ and—“

“You act as if he’s been dead,” Chrom cut in, before adding, “which, if he hadn’t been put under like this, he would have wished he was. This was for the best for him, after what had happened.” He turned to look over where Maribelle was sitting, and she sighed when she saw his glare. “I’m just saying, someone in this room could have killed him, so let’s be thankful this is the worst that happened.”

In a move she wouldn’t have chosen to make given the circumstances, Maribelle was going to snap back at Chrom, but Lissa spoke before she got the chance. “I’m thankful every single day that he’s alive and that I’m alive and, yes, that Maribelle’s alive too.” Chrom grumbled something at that, to which she replied, “I don’t care that you hate that she hurt me, she did it because she didn’t want us getting in trouble! If I can forgive her, you can too! Now stop being such a sourpuss and get over it!”

“Did…you just call me a sourpuss?” Repeating the word with shock and surprise, Chrom didn’t expect his sister to confirm that she did, and he certainly wasn’t expecting everyone else to agree with her that he was being one. “Okay, well, I have every right to be upset about everything that’s happened. A month without the school nurse, several days each week without one of our gym teachers, and a house missing one of the more lively occupants of it. How else am I supposed to handle that, aside from being upset by what caused it?”

“This isn’t the time or place to be having this argument, so I suggest you two stop.” Robin, still holding Lucina up, looked between Chrom and Lissa, shaking her head at both of them. “What if Owain woke up right now and that was the first thing he heard? He’s already going to be waking up to his father crying and his cousin yelling for him, so can we stop the fighting and give the poor thing at least a little normalcy?”

“How’s it going to be ‘normal’ for him when he’s going to wake up with tubes down his throat?” Now focusing on her son again, Lissa leaned a bit more into her hug with Vaike, inhaling deeply as she did. “He’s going to see all of us and going to want to move and try talking and it’s not going to happen and he’ll be so upset…”

The door to the room opened then, a nurse coming in to check on the boy to make sure everything was going fine with him, and everyone fell silent while she was present. But the moment she was gone, Chrom was back to pushing blame towards Maribelle. “And if he’s upset, we can tell him who to be upset with. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never showed love towards his godmother again after this.”

“What did I just say about him waking up to the sound of fighting?” Unhappy that she had been ignored by her husband, Robin pushed Lucina over into his arms before heading towards the door. “I’m going out for a walk, to get away from all of this. Anyone care to come with me, or are we all just going to keep fighting and making things worse?”

Quite obviously, Lissa wasn’t going to leave, and Vaike was going to stay by her side, so they were out of the question. Chrom looked at his wife in shock, before stating that he was going to stay there to keep Lucina in check. Robin took that as no one wanting to go with her, and she opened the door, just for Maribelle to stand up and come towards her. “I’ll take a walk with you,” she said, knowing that walking with a still-healing leg wasn’t the smartest option, but it would get her out of the room for a few minutes. “Maybe we can have a lovely chat while we’re out.”

“I would be fine with that, sure.” Not sounding exactly thrilled with her choice of companion, Robin held the door open for Maribelle, and closed it tightly behind them both once they were in the hall. “Is there something in particular you want to talk about, or was that your excuse to get away from Chrom?”

“You understand people so well, dear Robin,” the blonde replied, smiling as she spoke. “I have grown quite tired of him doing nothing but blindly hate me, when his sister whom has suffered so much at my hands has forgiven me almost entirely.”

“Yes, but Chrom and Lissa are two very different people who handle bad situations in different ways.” They were walking down the hall, many closed doors to rooms holding other critical-care patients on either side of them. “I’m surprised Chrom has chosen only to yell at you because of all this. If anyone else had hurt his sister and his nephew, he would have beat them into the ground if he could.”

The memories were faint and clouded, but Maribelle could somewhat remember Chrom trying to take swings at her out in that intersection the night everything went wrong. “It may have to do with my current physical state,” she said, putting a hand over her stomach right as the child within it kicked a bit, causing her to laugh. “He would never hit a pregnant lady, would he?”

“It is Chrom we’re talking about, so the answer could go either way, but I don’t think he would. He’d much prefer hitting and breaking other things.” Robin looked to Maribelle and saw the younger woman laughing again. “What’s so funny? Never thought I’d hear laughter in a place like this.”

“Nothing’s funny, I’m just finding my little one’s movements something bright in this dark place. I am most certainly not laughing about Chrom’s track record of breaking things, if that’s what you were thinking was going on.” She tried to curb her laughter, but the strange feeling of something actually being alive inside of her was enough to keep her giggling every once in a while. “I’m forever thankful that nothing bad happened to this one in the wreck. Is that wrong of me to say?”

Robin shook her head, a friendly smile on her lips as she did. “Of course it’s not. You want your kid to be safe, easy as that. I think the situation would have been much worse if something had happened to your child, after everything you’ve already gone through because of them. At least, the way things played out, everyone gets to live.”

“I can’t help but feel bad about possibly robbing Owain of his chance at living a normal life, though.” Now the laughter was fading, as she tried to make herself be more serious to talk about something important. “All this time I’ve spent in that room with him and Lissa, I’ve heard so many things about what could always be wrong with him, and it crushes my heart every time I see him lying there, so helpless and small and broken.”

“We’ve had plenty of discussions about it at home, so I understand what drives you to feel that way. But we all agree that if that kid is even a tiny bit like his father, he’ll be just fine in the end, no matter what the doctors might think.” Her smile grew a bit, looking at hope beginning to fill Maribelle’s face. “I’m still hesitant about them waking him up now, while he’s still healing, but they can’t keep him in that state forever. He’ll have to understand that his arm’s pinned in several places and his hand’s partially metal now, but he’ll be fine in the end, no matter what.”

The words gave Maribelle a bit of inner peace, something she’d desperately needed over the past month. “And do you think he’ll learn to forgive me?” she asked, now trying to keep herself from crying as she spoke. “Do you think there will be a day where he’ll love me as his godmommy again?”

“He’ll never have stopped. I know Lissa won’t make him hate you, and you know that Vaike goes along with Lissa most of the time. Chrom…well, once everyone’s back home, he’ll drop the act of blaming you for everything, so Owain won’t be told to hate you through him. Lucina’ll be too excited to have her cousin back to say anything. And me, you know I’m not going to ever tell anyone to hate someone else.” Maribelle was so thrilled to hear those words that she nearly knocked Robin over as she tried to hug her. “Hey now, we can do without either of us getting hurt right now!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Maribelle apologized, unlatching herself from Robin and going back to walking like nothing had happened. “I was a bit overcome with happiness there, if you couldn’t tell. The news that you all won’t teach the child to hate me is a lovely thing to get to hear, after everything else I’ve heard.”

“I understand, don’t you worry. I’m sure you’d be even more relieved to hear that I’ve tried getting Chrom to change his mind on you not being allowed to stay with us.” A small gasp made its way through Maribelle’s lips, although Robin didn’t exactly have happy news to share after that. “He’s still stubborn on keeping you out, but so is everyone else. Coming to visit, that’s allowed, but they don’t want you sleeping over.”

Nodding at what she was hearing, Maribelle had expected it but was at least comforted that they’d let her come over still. “Well, when Ricken returns home from school, he and I will have to work out some arrangement with his parents to keep me under someone’s roof, but that’s a problem for another day. Right now, I just want to thank you for being a kind soul and a listening ear to someone who’s been so hurt by everything.” Offering only an arm for a hug this time, Robin accepted the gesture, and Maribelle sighed once they broke apart. “It’s nice to know that, despite everything, people do still care about me.”

“We could never not care about you, Maribelle. You’re basically family, and that’s not going to change. What, if it had been Lissa driving instead of you, were we going to hate her for this? No, we’d be upset but we wouldn’t hate her. Just like we don’t hate you.” They’d made a loop on the floor, and were back at the door to the room everyone was in. “Now do we need to talk more, or would you like to go back inside and see what’s going on?”

Maribelle looked down at her legs, which she could see were trembling from the short walk. “Talking more sounds lovely, but perhaps a bit later? I do believe I need to take a seat and rest a little.” Robin was completely understanding, and as she opened the door to the room they were greeted with virtually the same scene they’d left before, minus the bickering. Everyone was focusing on the child in the bed, waiting for him to do something that wasn’t lie there motionlessly, and that was what Robin intended on going back to doing as well. Maribelle, on the other hand, was shaking as she stood and needed to sit back down—but that didn’t stop her from stealing a glance at the boy as she walked past his bed.

She could have sworn that she watched one of the fingers on his good hand move slightly as she looked, but it may just have been that hopeful spirit playing tricks on her. What was definite, though, was that by the end of the day, he hadn’t done anything more than possibly that small movement, leaving everyone disappointed that they’d spent all day waiting for nothing to happen.

The next morning felt a lot more normal to Maribelle when she woke up, but when she did her routine thing to check her social media sites and saw that Lissa had posted a picture of a very groggy and uncomfortable-looking Owain lying in that bed, his green eyes barely open, she knew that it wasn’t a normal day at all. Her godson was going to be fine, despite everything, and that meant that the world was slowly going to get back to normal.


	5. Maribelle Makes Fewer Bad Decisions

The act of Owain waking up that day was just the start in his long road to recovery, but after the first couple of weeks where he was still confined to the hospital while he continued healing, he was considered “better” enough to go home. It was a grand celebration when he got to come into his house for the first time in nearly two months, everything almost exactly as it was the last time he’d been there, but the mood was definitely soured when he went back to trying to do things like he used to and found that he couldn’t. He wasn’t helpless anymore, but he was still incredibly weak, to the point that he could barely walk a few steps into the living room without getting tired from the act. There was still a long healing process to be had, and this was proof of it.

During that time, Lissa still didn’t return to work, as she still wanted to spend every moment focused on her son and making sure he was okay. This was understood and not argued against by Chrom, who knew that at the end of the day, if his sister’s mind was focused so much on Owain, there wasn’t going to be any chance of her doing her job right anyway. So she was constantly at home while everyone else was out, a fact that everyone at the school came to know, and several people, in an attempt to give the healing child a social life, decided it would be a good idea to bring their kids over to the house so Lissa could watch them while watching Owain.

Maribelle tried to stay away from the house whenever other kids would be there, as she didn’t want to potentially have to watch anyone’s kid that she didn’t know. That meant that she was spending a lot of time doing nothing at Ricken’s house while his parents were at work, just waiting for the day that she could get over to Lissa’s house to finally get to open that document and talk about baby news she’d been trying to keep secret for so long. She had respected her best friend’s decision to want to wait to discuss it until her child could hear it, but with every passing day that Owain was getting back to normal, it just felt like that might have been an excuse given because Lissa simply didn’t care.

That was not the case, something Maribelle learned one day when she was dropped off at the front door to the house, the document held tightly in her hand. After the door was opened for her and Lissa saw what her friend was holding, she looked slightly downcast at what she was seeing. “You mean you’ve still not found that out yet?” she asked, to which Maribelle explained that she had been waiting like she had been asked to, despite how much self-control the act required. “Oh Maribelle, you could have found out whenever! I’m so happy you decided to let me find out at the same time, even after all this time!”

“You had wanted to wait until Owain could learn as well, which I think is mighty important, as this child,” she motioned to her stomach, right as the child within it gave her a hard kick, “is going to be best friends with that boy, regardless of gender.” The look on Lissa’s face didn’t brighten up at the claim, which prompted Maribelle to ask, “Lissa dear, isn’t that how it’s going to be? Best friends raising their kids as best friends?”

“Uh, yeah, but…” Lissa shook her head, sighing as she did, and let Maribelle into the house where she could explain herself a bit further. “He doesn’t get along with other kids, not even a little bit. He never has. And since the accident, I’ve been trying to get him to be more social but it’s, well, not working even a little bit.”

Maribelle laughed, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder as she did. “Then you’re simply not bringing around the right children, my darling! Besides, what’s the worst he could have done to any child in his current state?”

“He bit Laurent the one time Miriel brought him over to play.” Lissa looked ashamed to have to even say such a thing about her son’s behavior, but she continued talking despite it. “It didn’t draw blood or anything, thank the gods, but it was bad enough that Miriel said we shouldn’t try to force our boys to get along. And that was after we’d agreed that they were going to be great friends! I don’t even want to think about what Owain might do to your baby in the future!”

“Owain simply has a good taste in the company he should keep. He could do better than a nerd child for a best friend anyway.” Laughing more, Maribelle did notice that Lissa still looked like she had more to say. “Please, go on if there’s more of this delinquent behavior to talk about. I’m curious as to what I should look out for in interactions between our children.”

Hesitating for a second, Lissa exhaled a deep breath and nodded. “Right, that might be useful. But this one isn’t even something he’ll always be able to do! He’s not always going to have an arm that can be used as a weapon to hit girls who dare steal his toys with.”

“This is true, but he hit a girl? Where did he learn his manners? From his uncle?” It wasn’t a funny joke, but Maribelle was still laughing from before anyway, leaving Lissa to give her friend a rather concerned look. “Oh, I’m joking, Lissa, don’t worry. I’m positive your brother would never actually lay a hand on a woman in a forceful manner.”

“He wouldn’t, and that’s great, but now I’m really worried about where Owain learned to do that. I think it was on accident though, so maybe it’s no big deal, but it did ruin the wedding planning session that was—oh gods, Maribelle! Wedding plans!” Her mind having jumped to a new topic entirely, Lissa started heading for her bedroom, leaving Maribelle to become rather unwillingly pulled along, as she didn’t have the time to consciously unhand Lissa’s shoulder before her friend started moving. “There’s so much we’ve got to talk about and so little time to talk about it!”

“But what about my baby?” Maribelle asked, hoping to remind Lissa that they had, at one point, been discussing the document she was holding and the news it contained. “Do we have time to get back to finding out what my baby is, or have we moved on completely to your wedding?”

They were to the bedroom, Lissa pushing open the door and startling Owain as she did, where he sat on the bed off in his own world. She finally brushed her friend’s hand off her shoulder and hopped onto the bed, picking her son up and putting him in her lap in one smooth motion. “We can talk about the baby first, but we have to talk about wedding stuff too. It’s only fair, since I made you put off your news this long.”

“I promise to make it quick then, my dear.” Sitting down next to Lissa, Maribelle tried her hardest not to look over at Owain, but her eyes felt like there was an unexplained forced pulling them towards the boy. Seeing his entire arm still wrapped in a large cast, the only visible evidence of what had happened, made her stomach sink, a feeling that did not combine well with the child wildly moving around within her. She forced a smile at the boy, who glared back at her, grumbling something in broken child babbles. “Lissa, what seems to be his problem? He looks to be upset.”

“Does he?” Lissa looked down to see her son’s glare for herself, to which she gave a long sigh. “Oh, I think he just _knows_ there’s another kid here. That’s definitely the look he gave that little Severa girl the last time Libra was here to discuss the wedding with me.” She bounced her legs a bit, hoping to break Owain from his anger a bit, to no avail. “Hey, come on Owain, there’s no other kid here yet. You don’t need to be like this. No one’s going to take your toys and you’re not going to be able to bust any lips open by whacking kids with your cast…”

Listening to her friend talk to her child made Maribelle only temporarily reconsider the idea of her baby being best friends with Owain, but she knew that if anyone was going to be able to break the boy out of his dislike of other kids, it would be her baby. Without even a second thought, she reached over and grabbed Owain’s good hand, pulling it over towards her stomach right as the baby inside was kicking. The glare disappeared, a wide-eyed expression replacing it, and after a second or two Owain was pulling his hand out of Maribelle’s grasp, shrieking as he did. “Maribelle, what was that for?” Lissa asked, now trying to calm her son down from the experience. “He doesn’t like other kids, and now he’s going to be scared of you for doing that to him!”

“He won’t be scared of me,” she replied, now reaching over for the boy with both hands. “Now let me hold him. I’ll break him of this disdain for other kids.” A silence fell between the two ladies, as Lissa thought about if she should listen to her friend while Maribelle tried reaching for Owain more on her own, but eventually Lissa gave in and handed Owain over, the boy once again shrieking as he got passed to Maribelle’s waiting hands. “Now, now, my dearest godson, you simply have to get over this problem you have with other kids.”

“No!” the little boy yelled at her, trying to get away by wildly moving his arms. If he had been held any closer to Maribelle’s body, he would have definitely been hitting her with his cast, so until he calmed down she was going to keep him at the current distance, which only upset the boy further.

“Oh, but Owain, you simply have to be best friends with my little one,” she calmly told him, hoping her tone would get him to believe her. “After you bit your mother’s other choice of friend for you, there’s no one else we can do this with. Just give my baby a chance, will you?” He was still flailing his arms, but he seemed to be listening to her, although the sour look on his face was not comforting in the slightest. “Please, Owain, do this for your godmommy.”

“Don’t just do it for her,” Lissa chimed in, “but do it for me too! Come on, how about we both feel the baby move a bit?” She grabbed his wildly-waving hand and held it in her own for a second, before pushing it towards Maribelle, ending with both of their hands pressed against the curve of her stomach. When the baby inside kicked again, Owain squirmed and gave a low whine, to which his mother soothingly said, “That’s the baby that’s going to be your best friend someday soon. Isn’t it cool?”

The boy, now less distressed while being held in his current position, shook his casted arm a bit, trying to maneuver it to be able to touch with that hand as well, but thanks to how Maribelle was holding him it was impossible. He started babbling to himself, feeling a couple more kicks under the palm of his hand, all while his mom held his hand tightly and kept repeating to him that it was a baby they were feeling. Finally, his green eyes wide with excitement, he repeated, the best he possibly could, the word baby. It was clear he was trying to mimic his mom’s word, but he added extra letter sounds to the word so that it came out more like “bra-a-a-a-aby” than anything.

It was enough to get both ladies laughing, which in turn inspired him to repeat his garbled word a time or two, not understanding what was so funny about it. “Oh, that’s adorable,” Maribelle said, turning her head so that Owain wasn’t watching how hard she was laughing. “Maybe someday we’ll be able to remind him of this and he’ll be so embarrassed while his best friend finds it utterly charming.”

“Why would his friend find something he says ‘charming’?” Lissa thought for a second, before pulling her hand back, Owain’s coming right with it. “Gods, Maribelle, you’re already mentally setting our kids up with each other, aren’t you? We don’t even know what your baby is, so maybe you shouldn’t be doing that!”

“Or maybe I should be, because…” Her words caught in her throat, as Maribelle wasn’t exactly sure how to approach what she was about to say without coming off as insensitive. She set Owain down on the bed right in between herself and his mother, and reached for the document she’d been protecting so dearly. “Lissa, my darling, I simply can’t even think about this child I’m having being anything but a perfect replica of myself. If it’s a boy, he’ll no doubt be just like his father and I can’t put myself through the torture of watching a miniature version of that man grow up.”

Lissa nodded, hearing her friend’s words, but when she spoke she was very much against them. “Except what if it _is_ a girl and she ends up being just like her dad? That’s what happened with Chrom and Lucy, after all, so why wouldn’t it happen to you? You shouldn’t let your fear of your baby being like someone stop you from being happy about either option, because chances are it’ll be totally against what you want anyway. Like, for instance,” she ruffled Owain’s hair, as the boy reached towards Maribelle on his own, “this little guy? I so wanted a boy just because I didn’t want a baby who was like me. And what did I end up with? A baby who’s just like me.”

“Except you and Vaike are quite similar, so it’s hard to tell which one of you he’s really like! There are stark differences between Frederick and myself, and I don’t want to raise a child that reminds me too much of him.” While speaking, Maribelle was unsealing her papers, finally getting the chance to look at what had been documented for her months before. “That being said, I will consider not treating my child different if it ends up being male, simply because you have a solid point in your reasoning.”

“I try to make good points every once in a while,” Lissa replied, before noticing what her friend was doing and nearly pushing Owain over to try and get a look. “Okay, what’s the good news? We’ve waited this long to get to do this, so out with it!”

“I’m looking, I’m looking! Patience!” Rifling through the papers that were filled with information she honestly didn’t care to understand, the pictures that had the most important stuff were in the dead center of the stack. Maribelle cast nearly everything else aside when she got to those, holding them in her now-shaking hands with a pained smile on her face. “Here we go,” she said, her words almost catching in her throat again. “The first image here, this is the one they gave me to keep when I went for all of this. Same one I posted online for everyone to see.” She flipped to the next one, which was still nothing of interest, and then she moved to the following one. The pictures fell from her hands and she coughed out a small sob, burying her face in the crook of her arm as she did.

Not understanding why that was the given reaction, Lissa grabbed the pictures for herself and nearly squealed in joy when she saw the damning evidence as to the child’s gender. “Oh my gosh _he’s_ going to be the bestest little baby friend for Owain ever!”

All the while, Owain was once again trying to mimic the word “baby” just because his mother sounded so happy saying it—and despite her moment of unhappiness and weakness, Maribelle couldn’t help but feel that his butchering of the word was meant to be something more than just a child’s babble.

* * *

In the following weeks, which flew by faster than anyone could have expected, many things happened that seemed to be important to Maribelle, but she was too busy trying to focus on what was ultimately relevant to her personally to care. Despite her initial dismay about having a son, she was finding it rather easy to start building up supplies for raising him, especially since Lissa was more than eager to share everything she’d used for Owain, and so a lot of her time was spent making lists and organizing what items she was going to be taking. As for shopping for things, the time for that came in small bursts, especially whenever she was taken out for other reasons, such as picking out her dress for the wedding.

That event in itself was an endeavor that she’d never hope to have to go through again, but the one positive outcome from the day (after the dress shop nearly refused to set aside a dress for her just because of her situation) was that she had been present for her best friend picking out her wedding gown, something she wasn’t sure she’d still get the chance to do. Of course, that day was also spent making plans and doing some shopping for the baby, but the most important part had definitely been the gown-buying moment.

Winter break came upon everyone quickly, and with that came Ricken’s return home to finding his best friend and her ever-growing stash of baby supplies in his bedroom. He was incredibly sympathetic to her situation, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be relegated to being a guest in his own house, so after some discussions with his parents and Maribelle all present, it was decided that it was about time she found somewhere else to stay. Her options were fairly limited, as no one wanted to take her in and offer her a place in their home, but right as she was going to resign herself to being a couch-surfer (which wasn’t the most attractive option due to her physical state), she was approached by her parents who claimed to be acting in the spirit of the holidays, offering her a place of her own that they would begrudgingly pay for until she could support herself.

It most definitely didn’t make up for what they’d done for her, but she wasn’t going to turn down an offer for having her own home. They took care of the details, and when the time came they were even around to help her move everything that she owned into the small, two-bedroom apartment they were going to pay for on her behalf. It was the first time she’d seen her parents in months, and they exchanged maybe a dozen words over the course of the afternoon, but they were on relatively decent terms once more and she now had a place to call home that didn’t have anyone else doing the same.

For the actual holidays, she was invited to spend time with Lissa and her family, which she did without any hesitation, knowing that despite everything that had gone wrong, they were still a better family for her than her actual one was. This had two purposes, the first of which was giving her somewhere to be that was actually going to mostly appreciate her presence. The second purpose, one that was a lot shadier, involved an event that wasn’t actually part of the holiday celebrating, that being Vaike’s birthday. He was never one to turn away from the chance to get to have a party, and after pulling some strings and making some promises that events would not be repeated, he somehow managed to get a house party in his honor thrown at a house that none of them lived in, the very same house that had been the scene of the beginning of Maribelle’s problems. Due to that, she was very hesitant to actually attend, but Lissa managed to convince her to come to keep her company throughout the night of drinking and celebrating.

The two of them managed to have a lovely time watching everyone around them fade into drunken stupors, but Maribelle couldn’t help but feel a bit distressed when she saw the same sort of game start up that had led to her current situation. There was hand-raising, there were untrue threats flung, but unlike the last time, there wasn’t anyone pressuring anyone to go get “locked” in a bedroom. In its place, there were two drunken fools, locked arm-in-arm, who marched themselves outside for what felt like hours, only to come back in later with ruffled clothing and thrilled looks on their faces. It was no secret that Maribelle wasn’t going to be thrilled for them, not after what they’d done to get her where she was, but she was worried on their behalf, hoping that they didn’t end up in the same boat she was.

If they didn’t that night, there was always the next time there was a party similar to that one, or the time following that. The next month was littered with similar parties, most of which had no reason behind them aside from the people wanting to have some fun, and for some reason Lissa and Maribelle both kept getting dragged to them. They became the “voices of reason” for the events, trying to keep everyone intact and on good terms with everyone around them; while Lissa’s motivation was that she didn’t want anyone causing a scene at her wedding due to party-related drama, Maribelle found her motivation in really not wanting anyone to make the same mistake she had. It was far, far too late for her to do anything about her own situation, but she sure could help someone else’s.

When February began, the parties turned from having no point to them to being quite meaningful, at the expense of the ladies not being able to attend every single one. It was only fair, as they were now having to do their own thing in the name of celebrating the last few days of Lissa being an unmarried woman, but it was still concerning when everyone else was partying every chance they got and claiming each event was another bachelor party. While this bugged Maribelle to no end, her best friend was quick to accept it, if only under the condition that after the wedding, the parties went back to being few and far between, something that everyone had to agree to, lest she change her mind on the acceptance.

The day before the wedding, which had become an event that felt like it never was going to come, was the big rehearsal dinner, where the months of planning and preparation were put on show for last-minute checks and changes. Everyone who was going to be part of the ceremony, as well as a few others, gathered at the church where it was going to be held to get a few practice runs in, and it was while they were all there that Maribelle realized, for the first time, that the father of her child was also going to be in this wedding.

“Er, Lissa? Mind if I speak to you for a second?” she asked, upon having this realization come to her. Her friend waved her off, as she was busy going over some details with minister Libra that couldn’t be ignored, which left Maribelle to have to take a deep breath and handle things herself. Or, rather, that was the plan, but she took one look over at the man who she had only had a few interactions with over the past many months and decided that maybe talking to him on her own wasn’t the greatest idea.

Her nerves aflutter, she decided to go try and talk to anyone else who would listen to her, which naturally meant that she hunted down Ricken and cornered him into conversation. “I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t be okay with talking to you anyway,” he said, trying to squirm out from where Maribelle had him pinned against a wall. “We’re still friends, and I still care about you more than almost anyone else. You didn’t need to block me in like this.”

“I am only blocking you in so that you don’t run and get anyone else when I start speaking to you about my problems!” Without moving her arms, therefore keeping Ricken stuck in place, Maribelle leaned her head in as close to his as she possibly could and whispered, “I didn’t know that _he_ was going to be part of this and I’m terrified of what’s to come.”

“You mean Frederick?” The quick nod he got in return was enough to get Ricken to connect the dots in his mind to understand why Maribelle was acting so strangely, and he sighed. “You shouldn’t be scared of him being here. He’s not going to cause a scene about anything, not when there’s so many people around. Besides, he doesn’t even seem like the kind of guy to cause scenes anyway, so what’s there to worry about?”

“There’s a lot to worry about, dearest Ricken! What if, for instance, he takes an opportunity to slander me in some speech he’s asked to give? Or what if he brings his wife along to the ceremony and she does nothing but shoot hateful glares at me for what her husband caused?” She backed away a bit, not moving her hands, much to Ricken’s dismay, although he was a bit occupied with watching someone coming up behind Maribelle to really react at her slight movement. “I was unaware that he would be important in all of this, and it makes me uncomfortable that my best friend would allow such a thing.”

She noticed that Ricken was starting to mouth something to her, but before she got the chance to ask him what it was, a voice spoke that sent actual shivers down her spine. “It’s a shame that my inclusion was ultimately not up to Lissa then, isn’t it?” Frederick asked, standing right behind Maribelle as he did. “I would have figured she would have told you of that decision, however, but I can understand that other things might have been occupying her mind over the past few months.”

Her hands pulling back, allowing for Ricken to slide out and get away before he became part of a discussion he had no real place in, Maribelle slowly turned her head to see the stern, yet smiling, face of the man behind her. “She probably told me, but sorry that I’ve been distracted by other, more important and pressing things that are relevant to me and me only,” she said, trying to hide her discomfort with the situation. “Seriously though, I would have thought that she’d at least try to keep you out of this.”

“She did try, one time, but when she realized that the other options for my role were limited, she gave up and let Vaike select who he wanted to stand by him.” The smile faltered a bit, as Maribelle completely turned to face Frederick, and despite him trying to hold eye contact with her, he couldn’t help but glance down at her prominent stomach. “Oh gods,” he breathlessly whispered, looking at what he knew was his fault, all while she raised her eyebrows at his behavior.

“Uh, did you forget that you’re kind of the one responsible for this?” Her hands motioned to what he was looking at, but he didn’t reply in any way but trying to look her in the face once more, the smile still present but now one of awe rather than forced kindness. “Okay, what gives here? You’re acting like this is something you’re excited about. Because having an illegitimate kid is _so_ cool, right?”

“I’m not excited about the illegitimate part, but being a parent is one of those things that brings joy to my life. To get to be a father to a second child, despite the circumstances, is something I am thrilled for.” He raised one of his hands from his side, reaching towards her for a moment before stopping, returning his hand to its original position, all while she looked at him with even more confusion in her eyes. “Er, yes, that’s all. I understand that things between us have not necessarily been the greatest after the events leading to this child’s conception, but I can say, looking at you in this state, that you will be an excellent mother to this child after all.”

She nodded, still confused as to what he was trying to get at. “Thanks for the compliment, I think. Glad to know that you assume that just because a woman’s got your child in her still, she’ll raise it right. Which, of course, I am going to raise my baby perfectly, but whatever.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand move again, and this time she made sure to call him out on it. “Okay, what’s with the reaching towards me? You think I’m going to just let you touch up on me? Wasn’t that night enough?”

“Back before Cynthia was born, I would spend a lot of time feeling her move while talking to her, telling her stories, and the like. I haven’t exactly gotten the chance to do that with this little one, but asking a one-time fling if you can touch her stomach is a bit…odd, to be quite frank.” He shuffled in place, hands both moving around at his sides. “I was going to ask, but thought against it, due to your apparent disdain for me even being here talking to you.”

“I wouldn’t have a problem if you’d just ask,” she told him, crossing her arms in front of her so that they rested on the top of her stomach. “Well, I would, but I’d let you do it. Not like you’d feel anything right now, anyway. Little guy’s sleeping or something.”

It took a second for Maribelle to realize why what she had said had caused Frederick to return to genuinely smiling, and when she did realize it she wanted to smack herself for just casually gendering their child like she just had. Before she could get a word out of apologizing for ruining that news by such a nonchalant comment, he assured her that she hadn’t ruined a thing. “I’d been told that the child was a boy long before this, don’t you worry. As everyone was certain you would never get around to telling me, I was informed not long after they all were, so that I could start preparations of my own.”

“It was Lissa who told you, wasn’t it?” The question was the first thing that came to mind upon hearing that news, and Maribelle wasn’t shocked in the slightest when she saw him nod. “Figures she would do that. She knew that I wasn’t going to tell you right away and she did the job for me. Let me guess, she told you his name too, didn’t she?”

“She did not, but you’ve picked a name without consulting me first?” Of all the tones she figured she’d hear in Frederick’s voice, a hurt one was not on the list. “This name must have some special meaning to it, if you’ve chosen it without asking me if I approved of it.”

“I don’t have to ask you for approval for anything, but…” Her originally-intended reaction was to not tell him, just because he was acting like he was entitled to helping her make this decision, but then it sank in that, even though this wasn’t intended in the slightest, he did have some right to get to help name his child. That inspired her to actually tell him, making absolute sure to explain why the name she’d picked was the name that was going to be used, no arguments needed. “What if I said that little Owain kinda-sorta named our child? What if I stood here and told you that a boy with a limited grasp on speaking got the final say in what the baby’s name is?”

Frederick seemed stunned at what he heard, but he accepted it and shrugged. “Then I would be curious as to what kind of name a boy his age could come up with. You bring that possibility up because it happened, don’t you?”

“It might have, yes.” She was trying not to laugh at how he reacted, trying to think of what sort of name a small child could come up with. “But it’s a good one, I promise. Lissa and I discussed it thoroughly before I came to the decision to go with it. She thinks it’s short, sweet, and to the point, while I think it’s perfect that her child ended up getting to name mine, after everything that’s happened.”

“I’m thrilled that you conferred with Lissa on the matter, instead of someone who should have a say, but perhaps you could get around to saying the name?” Frederick was beginning to look like he wanted to be anywhere but still talking to Maribelle, as if he hadn’t intended for their conversation to last beyond a couple of sentences. “I would like to go pose a few questions to some of the other members of the wedding party before we begin practicing, and you are doing nothing but drawing this reveal out.”

She pursed her lips together in disgust, but understood why he was being impatient. “Right, I should get around to it, shouldn’t I?” she teasingly said, moving one of her arms from its current position to wrapping around the widest part of her stomach instead. “Thanks to the childish babbling of one precious godson of mine, my dearest baby, and your child too, I guess, will forever be named—“

“Can you two stop makin’ out over there and get serious ‘bout this rehearsin’ thing?” As if it were planned perfectly, Vaike was yelling at them right as Maribelle had said the baby’s name, drowning out her voice just enough so that Frederick hadn’t been able to hear it. He didn’t get the chance to ask her to repeat what she’d said because she walked away before the sentence summoning them was finished, and he hadn’t been able to read her lips to even get a small idea of what the name was. But he knew he would get the answer eventually, and he would just have to believe that she was aware she hadn’t been heard so that she would tell him the next time they spoke.

That, of course, would not happen because they were speaking again within minutes, although not because they had chosen to. It seemed that, over the course of the planning, it hadn’t once clicked in Frederick’s mind that because of his role in the wedding and because of Maribelle’s role, they would be having to interact like they actually got along. As the whole group was having the breakdown of what was going to happen the following day, when they got to people actually coming out to begin the ceremony, things turned interesting rather quickly. “Now, after the guests are all seated and waiting, that is when the ceremony is to begin,” Libra explained, looking around at everyone who was present, before motioning up to the front of the room, where the already-decorated altar was standing. “We will have the music start to play, and both the groom and I will take our places at the altar. Does everyone follow so far?”

He did another look around the group, everyone nodding in agreement, and he smiled. “Very good. You all are an easy group to coach through this, it seems. After we have taken our places, the next people to make their way down the aisle are the groomswoman and the bridesman, side-by-side, no contact unless they are fine with linking arms.” On one side of the group, Ricken seemed to shrink back, having not realized that he was going to be next to someone he didn’t know in all of this, while directly across from him, Sully was shooting him a thumbs-up and looking all too excited to be somewhat responsible for him looking so scared of what was to happen.

“She’s not that scary at all, and it’s not like you’re going to have to actually interact with her,” Lissa told her friend, hoping that it would help him be a bit less scared. “Unless you want to, of course, but I won’t be upset if you don’t want to.”

“Oh yeah, I don’t bite.” Grinning, Sully reached across the group a bit to try and give Ricken a high-five, but he didn’t seem interested, shaking his head frantically at the offer. “Okay, got it. You’re terrified of walking next to a lady this damn awesome. No big deal. I’ll have that fear out of you by the time we’re done here today.”

Ricken, still shaking his head, began to say something about how he wasn’t terrified about the act of walking next to her, but he was cut off by Frederick, who had finally come to terms with what the next step in the wedding procession was, and had something to say about it. “Excuse me, Libra, sir? Is there any way that you can change the part about people walking with each other? I’ve witnessed a few weddings before where everyone walks by themselves to the altar, and I would much rather prefer if that was how this worked.”

“My apologies, but that decision is not up to me, and even if it were in my hands, I would not change it, as the bride and groom both seem to want it this way.” Libra didn’t drop his kind smile for even a second, as he looked at Frederick and thought about why such a request would be posed to him this close to the ceremony. Without finding the answer he was looking for, he continued on with explaining what was to happen. “Once they have made their way to their positions, the maid of honor and the best man are to follow, optionally linked arm-in-arm.”

“Hold on a second,” Maribelle interrupted, raising her hand high into the air. “Did you just say I have to walk up to the front with someone? Who’s the lucky guy who gets to accompany me?” It was her turn to look around, seeing all the faces that looked hesitant to answer her question. “Come on, seriously? Someone going to tell me?”

“They’re not telling you, because it’s me,” Frederick replied with a long sigh. “I cannot believe that they’re doing this to us both. Can’t everyone just let us live with our mistakes in private, not making us deal with them in the middle of the wedding?”

“No one said y’had to deal with anythin’ out there.” Although he looked like he completely expected this reaction, it was clear that Vaike wasn’t exactly happy to be having to deal with it. “We weren’t changin’ what we wanted just ‘cause the two of ya can’t get along thanks to things that’ve happened between ya. Even after what happened between Maribelle and the rest ‘a us, Lissa wouldn’t give up on havin’ her be part of this, so we definitely aren’t gonna change everything for ya.”

Agreeing with every word she’d just heard, Lissa added, “Plus, we’re working with so few people that we can’t exactly switch things around to make them work better for everyone. Just put on a smile and deal with it for like half an hour, that’s it. That’s all we’re asking from you both.” At the last line, she glanced at Maribelle, who was still shocked at the news of who she was walking down the aisle with, before looking over to Frederick and his almost disgusted expression. “Hey, don’t be acting like we’re forcing you to do this. I’m sure we can find a replacement for _you_ at the last minute.”

“A replacement for me? Why would you remove me from this without considering removing her instead?” He motioned towards Maribelle, trying to get Lissa to look back over in her direction, but she was having none of it. “My involvement isn’t even something you have any say in!”

“Maribelle is my best friend, no matter what has happened between me and her, or her and anyone, and she’s so important to this wedding that we moved the entire ceremony to let her be part of it.” Putting her hands on her hips and giving Frederick a sassy look, Lissa hoped that it was the end of the discussion, and when he didn’t respond, she felt like she got what she wanted. “There, silence, that’s what I like to hear! Now you two please just play nice for the ceremony and at the reception, and then you can go straight back to not liking each other. I just want tomorrow being perfect, that’s all.”

For the rest of the explanation of how things were to go, as well as the multiple practice runs, the disdain at the pairing was mostly forgotten, and they tried their hardest to get through their short time together without talking much. However, after the final run when everyone was dispersing for the evening, he approached Maribelle to re-ask her the question he’d been denied an answer to before. “What do you mean, you didn’t hear his name?” she asked, to which he recounted the part about Vaike interrupting them at the most inopportune of times. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I thought you’d become a huge dick about having to spend time with me after me telling you that, and I was going to be simply furious with you about it. Instead, you were just a huge dick because you could be.”

“My wife will be at the wedding tomorrow,” he explained, “and I was unsure of how she would react to seeing us walking together, but it’s not worth ruining our friends’ wedding over. That’s the reason for my behavior, now may I please know the name you’re giving our child without my opinion on it?”

She looked at him, her pink eyes shining as she nodded. “Second try’s the charm, I suppose. His name shall be—oh, goodness, I don’t have the time for this!” Suddenly becoming panicked just before the reveal, she started to walk away from him, calling back in his direction once she was a decent bit away, “I will tell you tomorrow, I promise! I need to get going before my ride leaves me here to walk home!”

“N-no, Maribelle! Tell me now!” He was able to catch up to her incredibly quickly, grabbing onto her shoulders to try and stop her in place. “I’ll give you a ride home, so you don’t need to worry about being late. Let me know our child’s name, please! It will eat at me if you don’t tell me this news any longer!”

Sighing, she stopped trying to get away, silently resigning herself to his ride offer and to the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to get out of telling him the name through luck like she had the first time. “Right, right, it’s best if you know.” They locked eyes, the corners of his mouth upturning before she said anything else, while her expression went from being happy to a more neutral one. “His name is going to be Brady. Is that good enough for you?”

“It’s perfect,” he replied, awkwardly wrapping her in a hug for a few seconds before breaking away from her and rubbing at his arm. “Now let’s get you home, and maybe on the ride over we can discuss more about our child, especially these last few days before he’s actually here.”

“I…guess I could do that.” Her arms feeling like they were burning from his touch, she turned her face so that he couldn’t see her cheeks and how they were lighting up with a blush. “You’re not being so rude about our baby, so maybe you deserve to know a thing or two, maybe.” He laughed, and she cracked a smile in response, and together they walked out of the church to head to her place, the ride over filled with sharing everything he’d missed out on while she’d been upset with him and the situation. When he dropped her off, they promised each other that it wouldn’t be the last time they talked about things, but the next time was up in the air.

* * *

Preparations for the wedding began bright and early the next morning, as everyone who was part of the wedding party showed up hours before the ceremony to start getting ready. For everyone whose appearances were going to be easy to perfect, they were focusing on getting the church itself ready, both for the ceremony and the reception to follow, but for everyone whose attire was a bit more involved, they were locked in one of the side rooms, trying to get ready as fast as they could. Despite it being so far in advance, Lissa was already getting dolled up, the current project being trying to get her hair to hang down straight and look presentable, rather than like a stringy mop.

“I can’t go out there looking horrible,” she whined, eyes fixated on her reflection in the mirror as Robin stood behind her, trying to make sense of what was wrong with her hair. “I am not going to put my hair up for this either, by the way. I’ve always got my hair up. When’s the last time I actually wore it down? Never, probably. It’s got to be down for this.”

“I understand, Lissa. We’ll get this to work out somehow.” Taking a brush to the blonde head of hair before her, Robin chuckled to herself. “Remember when Chrom and I got married, and we didn’t have time to get my hair done so it was the same as how I usually wear it? I promise we’re not going to have the same thing happen here today.”

Giving a small nod, Lissa smiled at her reflection and what she could see of what was being done to her hair. “And if you can’t figure it out, we’ll just send someone over to Maribelle’s place and get her curlers and make my hair like hers. Is that a good plan?”

“My curlers take time to work, Lissa dear,” Maribelle replied from where she was sitting against the opposite wall of the room, little Lucina sitting right in front of her, as she was doing the young girl’s hair at the same time. “If that was going to be the plan, we would have started those preparations yesterday, which would have been impossible as I was using them to do my own hair.” She heard her friend give a defeated sigh, followed by Robin being assuring that everything would be okay, and that inspired her to ask a question of the older woman in the room. “Robin, how do you think I should do Lucina’s hair for this? In a braid? Pinned up like a mature woman? You know your daughter’s hair better than anyone.”

“That I do, but maybe you should just brush it out and let it hang loose like our bride’s hair will be. That way, she’s like a miniature version of our bride, which I’m sure she’ll love to be.” Robin, trying to work magic with the brush in her hand, turned around long enough to see her daughter’s grinning face, as well as Maribelle’s focused one. “You seem to already know how you’re going to tackle that task, so I’ll leave you to it. Can I trust you to take care of everyone’s makeup as well, since you’re much more skilled at this sort of thing than I am?”

“If you insist, I will gladly do it.” Maribelle smiled, happy that she was getting the opportunity to be so helpful in the preparations for the ceremony. “I took the liberty of doing my own makeup before getting picked up this morning, so aside from needing to get my wedding attire on, I’m set to go. Getting the bride and the flower girl both ready for the ceremony will be no easy task, but it’s one I’m excited to do.”

Outside of the room, Chrom could be heard calling for his wife, and although he hadn’t started beating on the door to summon her, she knew it was about to come, so she set the brush down and gave Lissa a small hug. “I’m going to go make sure everything’s fine out there, which most likely means that I’ll be saddled with watching Owain for the rest of the day because none of those men out there can handle it. I’m sure everything in here will go perfectly, but if you need anything, just scream until I come back.”

“Thanks for what you’ve already done, Robin,” Lissa replied, returning the hug the best she could before Robin broke away and headed for the door. The last thing that was said to her before she left was repeating the part about everything going perfectly, but the moment the door was closed and Robin was on the other side, Lissa was turning around in her chair, looking at Lucina and Maribelle with panic written all over her face. “Oh gods, this is going to be an absolute disaster and I know it!”

“Calm down, miss bride, you’re just letting the nerves speak through you. Once I get Lucina’s hair figured out and what little makeup is allowed to be on her face properly placed, I will come make you shine brighter than anything you’ve seen before.” Maribelle sounded confident enough that it helped calm Lissa a little bit, but half an hour later, when Lucina was ready minus having her dress on and Maribelle had moved on to working on preparing her friend, it was clear that the bride was still quite nervous. “You are shaking far too much for me to make this work,” Maribelle said, pulling her brush away from her friend’s hair. “The last thing I want to accidentally do is rip out chunks of your hair because you’re trembling like a leaf in the wind.”

“I can’t help it that I’m so nervous!” Lissa’s voice was beginning to tremble. “You’ve never had to go through this before, so you don’t know how scary this is! I’m getting _married_ in a matter of hours and I don’t know if I’m really ready for this!”

After the months of planning and preparing for this day, Maribelle was honestly shocked to hear her friend doubting her readiness, but she chalked it up to those pesky nerves. “Lissa, you are going to go out there and get married to the one true love of your life. You have been ready for this for a while, and if you go out there and reject him, everyone will be crushed. Everyone. But most especially the man you’re supposed to be marrying. Do you really want to break Vaike’s heart on this most precious of days?”

“I could never break his heart,” she replied, now sounding ashamed for having so much as insinuated that she wasn’t ready. “I’m just getting scared that something’s going to go wrong. There’s going to be a lot of kids present, what if one of them screams or cries during the ceremony? Or what if someone trips and falls? Or what if you start going into labor while we’re all out there? I can’t have my maid of honor having a baby while I’m getting married!”

“Lissa. Stop worrying. It’s all going to go perfectly, and there is going to be nothing that goes even slightly wrong here today.” Little did Maribelle know that she was roughly an hour away from finding out that her assertion was a dead lie, and the culprit for it being a lie was none other than herself. It was after they’d figured out how to get Lissa’s hair looking nice, especially with the little handmade tiara with a small veil attached to hold it in place, as well as after the bride’s makeup had been done to perfection. Together they’d gotten Lucina in her pale yellow flower girl gown, handed her the basket of flower petals she needed, and sent her out to be with everyone else so that she could be walked through what she needed to do one last time before the real deal, and the time for the two of them to get into their dresses was upon them.

It might not have been traditional for the bride to help her maid of honor get dressed, but if Lissa hadn’t been able to help Maribelle out a bit, there was going to be no way that she was going to get her dress on otherwise. The dress shop had been hesitant to sell her the gown in the first place, as they were unsure it was going to be able to stretch far enough if needed, and it was as if Maribelle was testing the absolute limits of the fabric’s elasticity, the dress skin-tight across her stomach. “Well, we got it on you, at least,” Lissa said with a laugh as she managed to get the zipper up the back of the dress all the way to the top. “And it doesn’t actually look that bad. Maybe we shouldn’t have thought you’d, um, stay small the entire time you were pregnant…”

Looking at herself in horror in the mirror, Maribelle covered her mouth with her hands and almost silently said, “I look like I’m going to burst out of this dress if I move even a tiny bit the wrong way. How could this happen to me?”

“Well, uh, if you want my honest opinion, you don’t actually look that bad at all.” Walking around her friend and inspecting her at all angles, Lissa smiled at what she saw. “I mean, I haven’t exactly seen a lot of pregnant ladies wearing dresses, but I can say from the ones that I have seen that you look fine. You’re not even actually that big, it’s just that the dress is kind of small because you insisted you get the smaller one.”

“We aren’t pushing the blame for this on me, please and thank you!” Still covering her mouth, Maribelle was trying her hardest not to start crying at her reflection. “I shouldn’t be this huge and disgusting and wearing something meant for someone so much smaller!”’

Taking the shirt she was wearing off to begin getting her own dress on, Lissa rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, remind me you made that comment sometime and I’ll show you pictures of huge and disgusting, and they won’t be pictures of you.” Looking over to her friend to give her a disbelieving glance, Maribelle was given a visual reminder of the aftermath of exactly what Lissa was referring to, which was not just a sobering experience to get her to stop complaining, but it was just enough to get Lissa to shriek in surprise. “Hey, did I say you could _look_ at me while I’m undressing? Gods, I don’t think I did! Turn away!”

“I’m so sorry, I’ll never complain about my appearance again,” Maribelle quickly said, going back to looking at herself in the mirror. “I got so wrapped up in my disdain for how I look that I forgot that you had it so much worse, growing that giant child on your tiny frame…”

“Seriously, I don’t know how you could have forgotten that I was probably bigger than you are now when I went to prom that year, and that wasn’t anywhere close to when I was due. At least you got to stay small until this past month.” Lissa fell silent as she continued undressing, and the next thing she said was to get Maribelle to help her get her dress fastened and secured properly in place, an easy task and one that didn’t require Maribelle having to see any inch of her friend that Lissa was ashamed of.

Following the dresses being put on came the shoes, which should not have been any sort of problem had Maribelle actually considered the fact that her shoe size might have changed due to her physical state. She went to slip on one of her heels and found that it was far too tight to even think about getting it on properly, and with there being so little time before the ceremony, there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. “Lissa, what would you say if I said my shoes aren’t fitting?” she asked, while her friend was getting her own shoes on. “Would you allow me to go barefoot?”

“Would I have a choice?” she replied, before freezing and looking at Maribelle with shock, the meek expression she was met with speaking novels as to what happened. “You’re kidding, right? Your shoes totally do fit, don’t they?”

Lifting up the evidence that they didn’t, Maribelle shook her head. “I guess I really should have just waited to get my outfit for this wedding, huh? Oh well, we can just say that I didn’t feel comfortable wearing heels and didn’t have a matching pair of flats.”

“My maid of honor is going to be going barefoot in the ceremony. At least that’s the only thing that’s actually gone wrong here, I guess.” Having finished getting her shoes properly fastened, Lissa sighed happily. “That’s one less stressful thing to worry about. Now all that’s left is the ceremony happening perfectly and then we’re all good.”

On the other side of the door, chatter could be heard as the other members of the wedding party were gathering outside, the ceremony drawing closer to starting. “I should probably go out there now, to make sure I know everything that needs to be done.” Maribelle looked at her friend, in her beautiful white gown partially covered in little gems that shimmered in the light, and she smiled at what she saw. “You’re a radiant bride, Lissa darling, and everything will go exactly as you’ve dreamed it would. I’ll see you at the altar, my dear.” They exchanged a quick hug and, after making sure that no one was going to be able to see the bride when she opened the door, Maribelle slipped out into the gathering area right outside.

Last-minute announcements were made, the process was discussed one last time, and then, after the attendees had been walked to their seats by everyone willing to help them, the music signaling the start of the ceremony began playing. She knew that she really should have been paying attention to the order of people leaving where they were all standing, but Maribelle was too busy trying to control her own nerves that had suddenly started causing havoc. Her cue for it being time to head down the aisle alongside the best man was Frederick forcibly grabbing her arm and looping his through hers, and after the momentary confusion of why he was touching her subsided, she took the position in stride. Aside from the music, everything was completely silent, and as they walked she was able to look around and see everyone’s judgmental expressions, most likely questioning why she was part of the ceremony in the first place (or, perhaps, they were just admiring the well-put together people walking towards the altar).

When they took their places at the front, Maribelle saw Ricken give her a small wave of encouragement, and then she watched as Lucina performed her duties as flower girl perfectly, distributing her petals all the way to the altar before going to stand next to her mother in the front row. The music paused for a second and everyone rose to their feet, turning to face the back of the church, where Chrom was standing, waiting for his sister to make her grand appearance.

The music swelled into a traditional wedding march at the exact moment that the bride came into everyone’s view.


	6. Bad Decisions Are Not Made (Or Are They?)

If anyone was reacting, they were doing it silently, as the only sounds in the room were the music and the slow, perfectly rehearsed steps echoing across the floor. If Lissa was still nervous about the ceremony, she was doing a great job of hiding it, looking completely at ease as she came to stand beside Chrom, followed by them walking down the aisle together, at a slow enough pace that everyone had the chance to admire the bride.

Having been the one responsible for getting her ready, Maribelle took a moment to look away from the bride so that she could see how the groom was reacting to her appearance. His mouth was slightly open, the shine of tears apparent in his eyes, and it was clear that if anyone there was the most impressed with how Lissa looked in that moment, it was definitely Vaike. Smiling at that reaction, Maribelle went back to looking in the bride’s direction, although she couldn’t help but glance around to see the reactions of everyone who had gathered for the occasion. No one else looked to be crying from what she could see, but she did notice that people who had brought children with them were holding hands over their kids’ mouths, to keep them from screaming out during such a precious moment.

There was, of course, one child that wasn’t going to be silenced no matter how hard the person watching him tried. When the pair got up to the front row of seats, there was a screech of excitement that broke the silence, followed quickly with calls of, “Mama! Mama hi!” that elicited a few laughs, especially soft ones from the bride herself, all while Robin, not even slightly fazed that Owain was doing that in her arms, simply let it happen.

The laughter stopped by the time Lissa and Chrom were up in front of everyone, meeting with the group up at the altar, before Chrom simply placed his sister’s hand over into Vaike’s anxiously waiting one, whispering something to Lissa right before taking his seat, giving those who had gathered a nervous smile as he went. The silence had taken over once more as everyone else sat back down and Libra started speaking, bringing the ceremony to its real beginning. He spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear, but in a kind enough voice that it was slightly calming to listen to what he was saying.

If Maribelle wasn’t so busy trying to look around at everyone, getting their reactions to what was happening, she might have gotten more invested at what was being said, but she was trying her hardest to know if anyone in the crowd wasn’t paying attention. This led to her very nearly missing the moment where the bride handed her the bouquet to hold, because she was focusing on everyone but those at the altar, but she caught the motion for her to reach out and take the flowers just in time to do it flawlessly.

For what seemed like forever, the ceremony went on, with a lot of long explanations of why everyone should care about the couple being joined together in holy matrimony. When the vows—half of which were original pieces, half of which were standard wedding fare—started to be recited, that was when Maribelle began paying more attention to those up front than any of the faces in the crowd. If she was going to actually watch one thing, it was going to be the moments leading up to her best friend marrying the man of her dreams; it was a shame that the only one of the two she could watch was Vaike, who was in a constant state of crying but not being choked up, as evidenced by the tears still in his eyes. Listening to him stumble through saying vows he clearly hadn’t written on his own was an adventure, but to hear him show so much passion in every word was a reminder to everyone that he really was in love with the woman he was marrying.

When they were each handed the rings they were to place on the other’s finger, one of the children in the crowd started loudly crying, halting the ceremony for a few seconds as the kid was quickly shushed and the parent responsible gave a muffled apology. (It should have also been realized that the music stopped for the same few seconds, but everyone was too busy being shocked by the crying to make any connections.) No one seemed to mind too much about the disruption, as the ceremony continued on as if it hadn’t happened at all, promises of forever being exchanged just like the rings. Libra took a moment to look around at all who had gathered for himself, once the final promises had been made, and he smiled at all the happy faces he was greeted with.

“It is my honor, in Naga’s name,” he started to say, holding his hands before him and bringing them clasped together, “to be able to present to you, for the first time as husband and wife…” He looked down at what he’d written on one of his papers and his smile faded quickly, replaced with a somewhat unimpressed grimace, but he tried to play it off as nothing, putting the smile back on to finish what he was saying. “…our newly-married couple, Mr. and Mrs. ‘The Vaike’.”

While everyone who hadn’t known that was coming proceeded to laugh at the announcement, those of them who did know simply applauded at what they’d heard. Taking the applause as his cue to move on to the next step, rather than waiting to hear the words they’d rehearsed acting on, Vaike jumped to kiss his new wife, who was more than eager to return to affection. Somewhere in the middle of him dipping Lissa backwards, Owain got out of his aunt’s grasp and ran as fast as he could up to the altar, grabbing onto his dad’s leg as tightly as he could, screaming excitedly about what was going on.

It was a picture-perfect moment, and judging by all the flashes she was seeing, Maribelle knew that there were going to at least be a few people she could ask to supply her with a version of the scene to post online. After the excitement died down and people regained their composure after the break from the tradition, the ceremony ended exactly as it was supposed to, everyone leaving in perfect and proper order; as everyone walked down the aisle, people who had gathered were cheering, excited that nothing had actually gone wrong and the hour-long ceremony hadn’t been too dull after all.

While all the guests were allowed to head over to the other part of the church where the reception was to be held once the wedding party had also dispersed, everyone who had played any sort of role in the event was stuck hanging around for pictures. If there had been one dedicated photographer, it wouldn’t have been nearly as big of an ordeal as it ended up being, thanks to the handful of people who had volunteered to take pictures. They were going at a rate of about one picture per minute, the time it took for the people being photographed to get in place a matter of seconds compared to how long it took for everyone to snap the perfect image. First it was a large group shot of the entire wedding party, then people were slowly removed until it was down to just the bride and groom, and then people started being added once more.

At about the same time that they started getting into pictures involving family (which, as there was not much family present, it was going to go by quick), someone suggested that pictures of just the other key roles of the ceremony were taken. Because everyone was so fixated on getting the perfect shot of the important people, it was hard to find someone willing to do what was suggested, but after disappearing to find a camera in one of the church’s storage rooms, Libra told everyone that he would just do it himself. That arrangement lasted for about two pictures, until someone wanted _him_ in them, and so he had to pass the camera off to his wife, who was busy trying to keep their daughter out of everyone’s way. She didn’t seem thrilled to have to be taking pictures, but she did it almost flawlessly, as if she’d been a photographer all her life.

It was all going fine, until she asked for just the maid of honor and the best man to take a picture together. The looks she was met with were one of horror and one of concern, and the concerned figure was the one who spoke against the decision. “Er, could we maybe not do that? All of the other pictures with us in them are good enough, I would think.” Frederick shuffled a bit where he stood, glancing over at Maribelle, as she shook her head and looked almost like she’d been asked to do something terrible. “Please, Cordelia, don’t force us into doing this if neither of us want to.”

“I’m sorry, but I want to make sure that every possible picture is taken, and that’s a rather important one to miss out on.” Holding the camera and looking back at Frederick with a no-nonsense expression on her face, Cordelia pointed to where she wanted the two to stand, saying, “What if I didn’t take this and someone decided they wanted this particular picture for something? That complaint would somehow get to Chrom, which would get to me, and I don’t want to be responsible for him getting complaints.”

“It naturally comes back to Chrom with you, I understand.” Still shuffling a little bit, his feet moving to where he’d been directed to stand. “It _also_ naturally comes back to doing whatever you can to make me suffer after what I did. This isn’t so much about getting a picture as it is about making me uncomfortable for a moment.” He watched as the redhead cracked a small smile and nodded, and he sighed at the display. “In that case, let’s get this over with. Maribelle, one picture won’t kill either of us.”

She had to force herself to accept that he was right, but it didn’t mean that Maribelle was fine with having to get close to Frederick for the umpteenth time that day, looking like they actually got along, so that they could have this apparently really important picture taken. “I’m so glad that after today, I’ll never have to get this close to you again,” she said once they were told that the picture looked fine and that they could separate. “Because all this standing around you is making me super wary of what everyone else is thinking about us and I don’t want to deal with it.”

“No one’s thinking anything about us, aside from those who know the situation, and even then, they are most likely more focused on everything else, not us.” Frederick paused, as he heard someone calling his name for yet another picture, but before he followed the call, he made sure to say to her, “We will discuss things further once we’re no longer obligated to be in here. There is something that needs to be said, but it will wait until there aren’t so many people around.”

As he was walking away, a shiver went down her spine, unsure of what to think about him needing to tell her something in private. But what worries she had were quickly erased when she saw Lissa walking straight towards her, a huge grin on her face. “So, we’re totally going to take all sorts of pictures right now, and there’s not a single thing you can say to me that’ll make me change my mind.” Her friend held out a hand for Maribelle to grab, which she took without any hesitation, only to find herself being pulled in close to the bride. “We’ve got to get enough pictures of how amazing we look right now so that we can always remember this day, and so that we can show our little boys what kind of pretty ladies they’ve got for moms when they’re older.”

“Oh yeah, because that’s going to work so well when one of us doesn’t look very pretty at all.” Being tugged in a bit closer, Maribelle frowned at her friend. “Lissa, darling, I understand that you’re feeling on top of the world right now, but you’re the most gorgeous woman in the entire building, and everyone pales in comparison to you. Most especially your dearest maid of honor, by the way, and I will not hear a word of you saying otherwise.”

Lissa narrowed her eyes, not breaking her grin. “It seems we’ve come to a stalemate. I won’t hear you say we’re not taking pictures, but you’re being negative about it, and you won’t hear me say you look fine, even though you totally do. This is a capital-not, capital-good situation, and you know what we’re going to do about it?” Maribelle didn’t even answer, knowing exactly what was coming before it was said. “We’re going to take our pictures and look fabulous doing so, that’s what we’re going to do!”

“You’re impossible to argue with when you’re so insistent, my friend. Let’s get to taking these pictures, I guess.” Accepting that this was coming was the only choice to Maribelle, and so she let herself be dragged off to a different part of the room, Cordelia following them so that she could be the one to take the pictures of the two. They spent quite a bit of time getting into different poses and having fun while doing so, but eventually Lissa was out of ideas that the two of them could use; rather than letting Maribelle be done with the pictures, she instead left for just a moment to go get Owain to use him as a prop for even more pictures, much to Maribelle’s dismay.

Her unhappiness must have been apparent, because as soon as Lissa was out of earshot, calling for her son over the chatter of everyone who was still in the room, Cordelia looked over at Maribelle and tilted her head to one side out of curiosity. “What, is there something wrong with me?” Maribelle asked, suddenly becoming worried that the pose-making had taken a toll on her dress. “Please, by all means, if there’s anything off about my appearance, let me know right now!”

“No, nothing’s off about how you look. I’m just wondering how long it will take for you to try pawning that child off on someone else.” Her eyes were looking Maribelle straight in the face, so she could see how the blonde started to appear angry from what she was hearing. “Oh, don’t act like you’re offended by this. Now that I have actually gotten to see you, I can understand why I was told to inform others if you ever tried bringing that poor child by the orphanage for any reason.”

“D-did he really say that?” Not even needing to say who the “he” in the sentence was, Cordelia nodded and Maribelle honestly gasped in shock at the revelation. “The nerve of that man! He thinks that I would actually give up my baby after everything I’ve been through? No wonder he wants to talk to me in private! I’m sure he wants to tell me that he’s been to the courts and is going to fight to have the custody rights of my baby!”

“When did this become about him wanting to keep the child for himself? I’m fairly certain the reason I was given was ‘to keep the baby away from friends he might not get to maintain,’ but if you’re going to attack a friend of mine…well, I’m not going to stop you.” She waved the camera around with one hand. “I’ll just get proof you did it, and he’ll have something to say to you about it, I’m sure.”

To say Maribelle was a little ashamed of having jumped to such a nasty conclusion would have been a fair estimate, as she didn’t regret making the assumption one bit, but the rebuttal to it stung slightly. The feeling wore off when Lissa came walking back, bringing with her a screaming Owain who was unhappy he’d been taken away from, of all places, a group that contained all the other kids there at the wedding. He eventually calmed down, allowing for the two ladies to get as many pictures with him as possible, and when he was starting to whine again (this time calling for his dad, because he was done wanting to be with his mom), they decided to call it a wrap on the photo shoot. When Cordelia walked away, she made sure to give a discreet wink in Maribelle’s direction, something that Lissa noticed and had to ask about. “It was, er, nothing, really,” she got as an answer, as Maribelle was already moved past her awful conclusion-jumping incident.

After all, she still needed to go have that civil, private conversation with Frederick, and she couldn’t spend all day being ashamed about how she had pigeon-holed him as a bad person once again. Finding him wasn’t a huge challenge, as very nearly everyone had moved out to where the reception was being held, but he was still hanging around in the room they’d been taking pictures in, as if he knew that she’d be one of the last ones there. “I figured you might have decided to ignore my request at a conversation,” he said, laughing, when he saw her come up to him. “But then I came back in here to check and I saw that you and Lissa were in the middle of something and realized that you would get to me when you could.”

“I wasn’t going to blow you off, not when you seemed so genuine about wanting to talk to me.” She put the smallest of smiles on her lips, hoping to get him to just start talking to her right there, but it was no use. He told her where he wanted them to have their conversation, close to the front doors to the church, somewhere that no one there with the wedding would be, and he followed that with, “I’ll be over there in a matter of minutes. You go on ahead and make sure we’ll be alone once we’re there.”

She was sure her cheeks were lighting up a bit, but the heavy makeup she was wearing was doing a great job of concealing that fact. “As you wish, sir. We shall meet again over there momentarily.” He went out towards the reception’s location, while she rolled her eyes and started towards the front doors. Like expected, there was no one there, nor did it seem like anyone had been near there since everyone had arrived, so she found the first chair in sight and sat down in it, all the standing and movement beginning to take a toll on her. By the time she saw Frederick coming in her direction, she’d been distracted too much by the movements of her child within her to notice that he wasn’t heading over alone.

Yet, by the time he was in front of her, with his wife and daughter at his side, she knew that she had been tricked into a conversation that wasn’t quite as advertised. “Hey, what’s with these two being here?” she asked, motioning to the two ladies with one hand while the other was resting on her stomach, feeling the kicks that the little boy was throwing at her. “I thought you said this was a ‘private’ conversation, not a ‘family’ one.”

“I said I wanted to have this conversation in private, that’s all.” She watched as one of his hands started reaching for her, as he must have known what she was feeling, but before he could get anywhere close to touching her, his wife grabbed his hand to stop him. “Ahem, right, I shouldn’t assume I can reach out and touch what isn’t mine. However, might I make a request?”

Without beating an eyelash, Maribelle shook her head and said, “No. You’re not allowed to touch me like that. Sorry, not happening.”

“It’s not for me to feel, despite how much I would love to.” She watched as his fingers, which had looked so eager to feel a child’s movements underneath them, were curling into a loose fist at what he was saying. “It’s for Cynthia. She, well, she’s excited to be having a younger brother and I was…” He looked to his wife, who smiled and gave a small nod. “…rather, Sumia and I were hoping that you would give her the chance to feel him move for even a little while.”

“We’ve explained the whole situation to her, and she knows that he’s not going to be living with us but that he’s still her little brother, and she’s so excited about everything.” Sumia laughed, a sound that Maribelle never thought she’d hear this woman give in her presence, as she’d tried to ruin this marriage so many times that she didn’t think they could ever be polite to one another. “Please, I understand that this must be extremely weird, but she’s always been curious about what babies are like when they’re inside their mommies, and since you’re her brother’s mommy…”

There wasn’t going to be a way out of this situation for Maribelle that didn’t end in either crushed dreams or some young girl’s hands feeling all over her stomach, so she swallowed down hard and nodded. “I hear you. Come on, little one, you can feel your brother move a bit if that’s what you really want.”

“It is!” little Cynthia chirped, coming right up to Maribelle and reaching out with her small hands. “I wanna feel the baby move, so so _so_ much!”

“Well then today’s your lucky day, since he’s moving around pretty well right now.” Grabbing the girl’s hand to place it in a prime position, it only took a few seconds of waiting before a forceful kick was made relatively close to where her hand was resting. Her eyes lit up like she’d just been shown something amazing, and she tried resisting screaming but let the excitement get the best of her. At the sound of her scream, it seemed that the baby wanted to kick harder, which in turn led to another scream. “Well, it seems that, despite not having had the chance to interact with her before, baby Brady understands that that’s his older sister’s scream.”

Now Cynthia’s eyes were going wide, her jaw dropping with what she’d just heard. “He knows me?” she asked, before shaking her head to move past that thought and bouncing up and down a bit. “Oh, his name is Brady? Baby brother Brady! That’s my baby brother!” She seemed overjoyed at the news, continuing to hold her hand in place so that she could feel him move around more.

“I take it that you didn’t tell her that last night after I told you?” Maribelle asked, looking at Frederick with raised eyebrows. “I would have figured you’d have run home and shared that news with everyone the second you could.”

“Cynthia was asleep by the time I got home, but Sumia and I did discuss it for quite a while. The name seems like it should be perfect for him, especially if it did come from where you claim it does.” He watched as she accepted his answer, taking her eyes from watching him to instead watching his daughter once more. “We can’t argue against anything that Owain came up with, not after all he’s been through up to this point.”

“I’m glad you’re fine with the name, because it is the baby’s name no matter what you think about it.” There was something about how she said that, something about her word choice or maybe her tone, that came off in a way she didn’t really like. For the rest of the time she spent there, sitting in her seat while Cynthia felt the baby’s kicks and her parents stood nearby, talking about their hopes for the child, all she could bring herself to do was listen to what was happening. She didn’t want to comment on anything that Frederick or Sumia were saying, in case of insulting them further (although she hadn’t insulted them in the first place), so she simply nodded as they posed ideas to her.

Somewhere during the conversation, one of them had suggested not forcing a regular schedule for which parent got the child, and the other had said that it was a good idea simply because Maribelle seemed to already be so attached to her baby. She vigorously nodded to that one, despite seeing the crestfallen look on Cynthia’s face when the girl realized that meant she wouldn’t be spending a lot of time with her baby brother. Still, the experience of getting to feel her unborn brother moving around inside of someone who wasn’t _her_ mother more than made up for everything to the girl, to the point that when it was finally time for the “conversation” to be over so that everyone could go to the reception and not miss out on anything, Cynthia had to give her baby brother a kiss before she left.

The wet lip marks on her dress were a bit weird for Maribelle to look at, but she wasn’t going to complain about them because they were there because of a precious little girl who was already madly in love with her half-brother. She would have admired them a little bit, if it weren’t for the nagging feeling inside of her that required some immediate attention—that accidental rude response had caused her to worry to the point that she knew she was about to be sick, and the last thing she wanted was to be looking down at her dress just to throw up all over herself. She didn’t know the layout of the church very well, but she did know that there had to be somewhere near the front that she could duck into to take care of her problem. The only issue there was, the first bathroom she found was a bit closer to the reception area than she would have liked, and when she got inside, there seemed to be someone in the other stall, doing the exact same thing she was just about to.

Thankfully, she’d grown quite accustomed to throwing up without any problems, and her body was so used to her vomiting any time she got too worried about something that it was a quick process. In the short time she was inside the bathroom, the other person there didn’t leave, and she was tempted to ask them if they were okay, but she thought against it because she wasn’t going to become some stranger’s support buddy in a church’s bathroom. If she had recognized the person’s shoes, she might have thought twice, but she didn’t have a clue whose shoes they were, and she wasn’t going to investigate any further than that.

“Oh hey, Maribelle! I finally found you!” she heard Ricken say the moment she came out of the bathroom’s door. He didn’t seem to care about where she’d just been, only running to her with a sheepish grin on his face. “Come on, I’ve got someone you need to meet while we’re all here today. I had Lissa meet her the first chance I got, and now it’s your turn!”

He seemed excited about whoever it was she was supposed to meet, so she followed along with him, going exactly where he wanted her to. “I had no idea you brought someone with you here today,” she remarked as they walked through the reception area, all the wedding guests gathered and talking in groups. “Looks like our little Ricken’s all grown up, getting himself dates without letting his best friends know a thing!”

“Lissa said that too, but I don’t get it. I mean, of course I’m grown up, because you two have grown up too!” He laughed, putting his hand on Maribelle’s shoulder and leaning into it. “If she’s allowed to be married now, and you’re having a baby, the least I can do is have a girlfriend, right?”

“As long as it doesn’t go any further than that without our permission, I see no problem with you having a girlfriend. What’s she like? She must be just like me and Lissa, since we’re the most lovely ladies you know.” Maribelle was laughing as well, enjoying the fact that Ricken was still such a great friend after all the time that had gone by and all the actual growing up they’d been forced to do. “I’m honored that you’d let me meet her, given all the circumstances surrounding my appearance and whatnot.”

He got off her shoulder, standing up tall at seemingly nothing. “I’ve told her everything about you and she wants to meet you. So yeah, she does know the story behind your baby and all that, but she’s not disgusted by it or anything. In fact, she thinks you’re pretty brave for wanting to be a single mom!” Cupping his mouth with one hand to raise the volume of his voice to be heard over the general chatter, he called, “Hey Panne, look who I went and found! It’s my friend Maribelle!”

Completely expecting to come face-to-face with someone of similar appearance and build to herself or Lissa, Maribelle was shocked to find that the woman Ricken’s call had summoned was a tall, dark-skinned, and muscular stranger that she’d seen in the crowd during the ceremony, who was now looking down at her with pursed lips and examining eyes. “She seems to fit the description you’ve given me of your friend, yes,” the woman said, her voice flat and unwavering, before holding out a hand for Maribelle to shake. “How do you do, miss Maribelle? My name is Panne. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“You’re quite polite, Panne,” she replied, taking the hand and giving it a small shake. She couldn’t help but notice that Panne’s grip was rather strong, not wanting to let the handshake end when it was over. “How did my little Ricken end up with someone like you?”

“It was not a matter of ‘ending up’ with me. He was nothing but kind to me whenever we interacted during the class we took together, always assisting me with my homework when I missed class due to my work schedule, and it turned into something more personal and less academic.” She turned her head, the corners of her mouth upturning and her eyes crinkling a bit at the happy thought. “When he said he was to come home for a wedding and could use a plus-one to attend alongside him, I was honored to be his selection. He is a wonderful man and I feel like a more complete woman when I am with him.”

“Aw, you don’t have to be so cheesy-romantic to impress Maribelle! She’ll like you if you just speak the truth, Panne!” Ricken was blushing hard at the kind words, and his cheeks only got redder when she explained that she was actually speaking the truth. “Oh man, I had no idea you felt that way! You’re too sweet to me!”

“He very much knew that I felt this way,” she said, looking back at Maribelle and stifling a laugh. “I would not have come along if I didn’t feel a pull to be at his side.”

“I’m so glad you came along, Panne. It’s great to get to meet someone who means a lot to one of my best friends.” Maribelle was going to say more, but someone standing behind Panne caught her attention, someone that she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of during the actual wedding. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I found someone else that I’d like to speak with. It’s a pleasure to have met you, and I hope we do get to know each other better soon enough!”

Panne nodded, giving Maribelle an actual smile that looked warm and inviting, as opposed to the initial look she’d given her. “I hope so as well. You seem like you have been a great influence on Ricken and I would like to know more about you, and him, and your relationship with him.” Maribelle, wanting to get to talk to the person she could have sworn she’d just seen, said that she would be willing to do that at some other time, and after thanking Ricken for introducing her to Panne, as well as thanking Panne for being so kind, she was pushing her way between groups of people in search of a purple head of hair that had caught her eye.

The clue that she was trailing the person she thought she was came when the man turned around and was suddenly right in her face, his sideways-bent nose the telltale evidence that she was correct in her assumption. “Howdy there, Maribelle!” The man’s voice, tinged with surprise at her appearance, was another assurance that this was the right guy. “Feels like it’s been a long while since we last chatted! How’s life goin’ for ya?”

“Things have been okay at best, dear Donny, but what’s more important is how things are going for you. None of us have heard a single thing about you since the last time we saw you, which was simply ages ago!” Without really thinking about her actions, Maribelle grabbed Donny in a hug, taking in his farm-fresh scent, all while he was caught by surprise at her actions. “Please, tell me how you ended up getting here!”

“Er, well, I got an invite in the mail months ago, which was mighty odd as I didn’t know Lissa knew where I was livin’. Turns out that she didn’t have even a clue, but Chrom sure did, and he helped her out! Didn’t make it in time for the actual weddin’, but I came anyway because it felt like the right thing t’do.” He shrugged while still in her hug, before feeling part of her stomach pressing up against him. “Uh, Maribelle? Don’t mean to sound rude by askin’ this, but what part of ya is hittin’ me in this hug? Feels kinda like you got somethin’ shoved right up your dress, which I didn’t think was your style.”

She froze in thought for a moment, realizing that this boy quite possibly had no idea of anything that had happened in nearly two years, as the last time she’d seen him had been at a graduation ceremony. “There’s nothing shoved up my dress, aside from what’s meant to be up there. Perchance, did Lissa send you a letter explaining current situations when she sent you her wedding invitation?”

“Sure didn’t.” He was in the middle of giving a firm shake of his head when he paused, thinking of conflicting evidence. “Well, okay, she did, but it won’t anything important. Just that I won’t gonna be the only one here with a busted nose. Didn’t understand why that meant anythin’ until I saw her, but she ain’t said what happened to her, only that it was a long story she didn’t have time for.”

“Typically Lissa, willing to throw people into situations blind. There’s a lot that’s happened in the time since we last talked, but what’s most relevant to what you asked me is that I…” Not sure how to explain her situation in a concise matter, Maribelle decided to go with a vague way that would always result in more questions than answers. “I got myself into a bit of trouble that resulted in me getting pregnant, which then led to a lot of other things happening, none of which really matter at this moment.” Finally breaking from the hug, she looked Donny straight in the eyes and grinned. “It’s been far too long, my friend, and I am so glad you could come here for Lissa on this important day in her life.”

“I’m glad I could come too! Bein’ here’s loads better than bein’ back on the farm. Y’know, you’re a lot like most of our animals out there right now, come to think of it.” As he looked down at Maribelle’s stomach, which she tried to hide a bit with her hands, he started to stroke his chin in thought. “They’re all havin’ babies and stuff, just like you! Man, I wonder if helpin’ birth a human baby is anythin’ like helpin’ birth a calf. Did that earlier today before comin’ here, actually. That’s what made me late to all this!”

If anything could ever make Maribelle regret hugging someone, hearing that they’d assisted in a cow’s birth was one such thing. She cringed at the mere thought of having just touched someone who’d gotten up close and personal with a cow’s reproductive parts, and tried to excuse herself from the conversation as quickly as she could. “I’m sure you’ve got a lovely story to tell about that, but I’ve got other people to find today. We will have to try to keep in touch after this though!”

He understood that she was probably quite busy and didn’t take her sudden want to get away as his fault, even though it really was. She continued her journey through the groups of people, this time looking for no one in particular, as long as they’d be able to save her from conversing with anyone she didn’t want to talk to. Before she could find someone, though, she was found by someone else who wrapped their arms around her shoulders and laughed when she started trying to break free from their grasp. “Hey now, that ain’t no way to be reactin’ to the man of the day findin’ ya wanderin’ around without anyone keepin’ ya company. Don’t ya want a friend to talk to?”

“I was doing fine looking for people on my own without you grabbing me, Vaike!” Even with her still squirming, all he did was continue laughing, not letting his grasp go at all. “Oh please, don’t you have anyone else you could be doing this to. Like, for instance, your new bride? I’m sure she would love to be wrapped in your arms like this!”

“Yeah, I’m sure too, but Lissa ain’t around here right now, and she told me that she wanted me to go find you before you caused trouble or somethin’. Now, the Vaike might not be the smartest guy, but there ain’t exactly that much trouble a girl like you can get into, is there?” he asked, finally letting his grasp go so that Maribelle could turn around and shake a fist right in his face. “Whoa now, can’t be gettin' violent with me, not when everyone who’s here is here ‘cause of me. They might not like that.”

“I could get into a lot of trouble on my own if I so chose to, but I’m choosing not to because I respect you and Lissa and your wishes of this being your perfect day.” After getting one last good fist shake in, she dropped her hand to her side and gave a small “hmph” at him. “There’s got to be an actual reason for why she sent you to come looking for me. Please tell me she didn’t do something to her dress. If either of us is going to ruin our gowns, it’s going to be me, not her.”

“No way, it ain’t anythin’ like that. She wanted to know where you were, that’s all. But doesn’t do her much good when she ain’t in here and you are, now does it?” Because he was taller than most of the people surrounding them, he did a quick scan of the room, looking to see if his bride had returned from wherever it was she’d gone. “She’s not even back yet, which is pretty weird. Her and Robin said it won’t gonna take that long to do whatever it was they were gonna do, but it’s been like ten minutes and that’s kinda long.”

Maribelle had to think about what he’d just said for a moment before she caught on, slapping herself on the forehead when she realized it. “She wanted to make sure I didn’t bail out on her, because as her maid of honor I’ve got responsibilities that I’m clearly ignoring by having disappeared for so long!” He smiled at her, as if he’d known that the entire time, and she sighed deeply. “Great, some best friend I am. She’s going to be angry when I get down to the room, and it’s my fault for choosing to be social rather than being by her side!”

“This ain’t any reason to start thinkin’ she’ll hate you for somethin’! If she didn’t hate you for breakin’ her face and almost killin’ Owain, do you really think she’s gonna hate you for somethin’ like this?” He was nearly yelling at the end of his sentence, as Maribelle was heading back towards the other part of the church in search of where Lissa had gotten off to, leaving him standing there in the middle of everyone by himself. “That woman, I swear to everythin’, she just doesn’t ever make sense. Don’t know what Lissa sees in her.”

By the time Maribelle was back at the little room that had been used as a preparation room for the ladies earlier in the day, she’d mentally created almost three different speeches trying to explain her guilt in the situation. She could hear Lissa and Robin talking inside the room when she got to the door, and upon turning the knob she found it unlocked, so she stepped inside, ready to start apologizing for everything possible. “So I guess Vaike actually found you, didn’t he?” Lissa teasingly asked, looking over at her friend from where she was sitting, still looking fabulous in her wedding gown. “I knew he was going to scare you into coming down here if he did, which is great! Except there’s really no reason for you to be here, honestly, since we’re discussing something important!”’

“Important and actually involving you,” Robin chimed in, casting a smug look in Maribelle’s direction, “since you’re one of the few ladies present who isn’t already married.”

“What does me being married or not have to do with performing my role as maid of honor?” a confused Maribelle asked. “I came down here because it’s my job to assist the bride, which I was neglecting to do by being anywhere but here.”

Lissa reached onto the nearby table, where she’d set down her bouquet after all the pictures and whatnot after the ceremony. “We’re not talking about your role here, but rather the whole ‘who’s gonna get married next’ part of the fun. Me and Robin have been trying to come up with a list of the unmarried ladies here, but there’s, like, three of you. And some kids. But kids can’t catch my bouquet! That’s so unfair to the grown ladies!”

“As I keep trying to tell her, she should toss it even with the kids underfoot. It’s all superstition anyway.” Robin crossed her arms over her chest, looking at the flowers Lissa now had in hand. “Who even caught the bouquet when I got married? Certainly not the next person to get married.”

“Actually, you didn’t ever actually throw it to all the ladies who were there. You just kind of tossed it to me and I caught it, and…” Bringing her flowers to her face and taking a deep breath of their smell, Lissa giggled. “I totally was the next of the ladies there to get married. So it’s so not superstition! It’s a real deciding thing and I’m going to toss it and Maribelle better catch it so she can give her baby a daddy here real soon!”

Every word as Lissa spoke got more and more forceful, until her last thought sounded more like a threat than a hopeful wish. “If I were to catch it, and if this weren’t some hokey superstition as Robin says it is, then we would be playing with miracles because I don’t have the slightest of clues who I would marry anytime soon.” Maribelle hear her friend sputter as she tried to come up with some suggestion, but she knew that it was only that: a suggestion. Not anything solid or concrete, and definitely not anything that would happen. “How about we just let the bouquet be caught by whomever is fast enough to catch it, and let whatever happens with that happen?”

“Here I am, trying to help you give baby Brady the best life he can have, and you’re being reasonable.” Lissa gave a huffy sigh, before giggling again. “But I totally get what you’re getting at, and I guess I’ll toss it fairly, although I’m so aiming for you.”’

“So much for tossing it ‘fairly’ then, hm?” Robin asked, knowing that bringing that part up would only get Lissa backtracking harder. “Come on, we promised the guys that we’d be back shortly and this has gotten way out of hand. Can you imagine what sorts of trouble they could have gotten into out there without us?”

No one honestly wanted to imagine the possibilities, and so the three ladies left the room and went back to the reception, finding it to be exactly the same as it had been when they left. A call to order was made, and the announcement of the next part of the festivities swept through the crowd, asking all the unmarried ladies to gather in the middle of the room while everyone else skirted to the sides. When there were indeed three ladies who found themselves standing in the middle, an additional call was made for all the children, both male and female, to join them, all in the sake of having fun.

Lissa looked at everyone who she was going to be tossing this bouquet to and grinned, counting everyone silently to herself. “Looks like three eligible ladies and five brave kiddos to me,” she said, before turning her back to all of them. “Please, for the love of everything, don’t manage to hurt my little Owain in the rush to catch this thing, and please even harder, let Maribelle catch it!”

In the panic of hearing her name be said in such a pleading manner, Maribelle didn’t actually even notice that Lissa threw the bouquet in the complete opposite direction from where she was standing. In fact, aside from the kids screaming and charging for it, she hadn’t the slightest clue that it had been thrown in the first place, until a cheer erupted amidst the screams. She shook her head to re-root herself in reality, and then she was looking around at what had just happened. Standing beside her, Sully was having the exact same reaction, although hers was coupled with a bit of not wanting to have been dragged out into the center of the room in the first place, therefore being a bit upset with herself that she hadn’t won the figurative prize for being there.

“It seems, ahem, that I have caught the flowers. What kind of tradition is it to throw such a beautiful display down on the floor?” Having to pick herself up off the ground where she had dove to catch the bouquet, Panne was holding it out in front of her, staring at it with a confused gaze. “No matter, as I seem to have saved it. Was there a point to this?”

As the kids congregated around her, trying to take the flowers from her hand so that they could claim they’d caught them instead, Lissa turned back around and walked to stand beside Maribelle, covering her mouth in shock as she did. “I didn’t mean to throw it to her,” she said, stating a rather obvious fact, “and now that I did, I really hope Robin’s right about that being superstition. That lady’s nice and all, but she seems kind of, um, old to be with our dearest Ricken. Old and a bit weird.”

“Oh, well, it is only superstition, so we don’t need to worry. And you have no room to judge someone for dating someone older than them, missy.” Taking on a fake stern voice, Maribelle shook a finger at her friend for what she’d said. “You’re _how_ much younger than the man you married today?”

“We’re not making this about me! We were talking about Ricken and his girlfriend, so don’t bring my life into this!” Lissa playfully shoved her friend’s shoulder, to which Maribelle did the same back at her. The two laughed, before looking to see that Ricken had gone up to Panne, taking the flowers from her in a shocked state. In his eyes, they could see the worry that he’d accidentally been put into a situation he wasn’t ready for, which only made them laugh harder.

The reception went on into the late afternoon, with cake-cutting and gift-opening and all sorts of festivities that had everyone celebrating until the moment they were told to start heading out. It was a great time spent with a lot of wonderful people, and at the end of the day, after everything had been cleaned up and packed away and the church was back to its normal state, Maribelle couldn’t help but feel like it had gone by too quickly. Despite having spent so much time talking to so many people, everything felt more like a blur and less like something she’d remember for the rest of her life.

It did eventually dawn on her that she wasn’t the one who needed to worry so much with remembering everything, because the day hadn’t been about her. Therefore, she could only hope that Lissa and Vaike both would remember the day they’d finally gotten married as a good day for the rest of their lives.

* * *

Because of her insistence that things were to go her way and only her way, Maribelle had done the research into having a home birth, taking all the necessary steps to ensure that it could happen exactly as she wanted it to. There was just one small problem with her plan, and that was that nothing requiring special attention was able to happen in a home birth setting. She was sure that everything would go perfectly, as there had been so much that had gone wrong in her personal life that she was adamant nothing could go wrong with the birthing process.

Yet her projected due date came and went, and the child within her seemed to have no intentions of coming into the world. This, predictably, worried Maribelle to no end, as what if something _had_  gone wrong after all, and she was doomed to the exact same fate that her best friend had been? She had already been witness to a non-natural birth thanks to Lissa, and she didn't want to have to go through that herself, especially not since she was so adamant that she have this child in the comfort of her little apartment. Every day, she tried all the wives’ tales and rumors, trying to naturally induce labor in herself, and every night she was nearly begging her child to give up the fight and just come into the world.

It was just over a week after the last possible day she’d figured she would still be pregnant when she was woken up from her sleep by the feeling of most of her abdominal muscles contracting tightly for a few moments. When she wasn't in discomfort from the rude awakening and from the muscle movements, she found herself getting very excited that the time she’d been waiting for seemed to finally be upon her. So excited, in fact, that she almost called everyone she could think of who would share in her excitement, before checking the clock and seeing it was early in the morning. Letting her friends know that it was time could wait until a decent hour, she decided, so the only call she made was one to her personal midwife, who needed to be informed of what was going on right away.

The thing about babies and childbirth that Maribelle completely had forgotten was that this all happened on the baby’s schedule, not hers. She had spent so long waiting to go into labor that she had neglected to remember that it was going to be a long, long process, one that would be nore painful that she could have ever expected. By the time her midwife got to her place, she was already starting to grow tired of the painful contractions, something the midwife laughed at because, as she explained, it was still early and the worse pain was yet to come. Thinking that the laughter was indicating it was a joke, Maribelle didn't take the advice even slightly seriously, but when the contractions started coming a bit closer and lasting a bit longer, she knew the warning was the real deal.

Somewhere in the late morning, she decided it was probably time to call the one person she wanted to have there for the entire process, and so, as quickly as she could as to not end up screaming into the phone, she called Lissa, hoping that her friend would be quick to answer. She was, as she had been impatiently waiting to get that very call, but when she picked up and Maribelle told her the news, she had one thing to say that would throw a huge wrench in the plans: “Everyone’s out for the day, and it’s just me at the house with no way to get over there. You don’t think that he’s going to hang on until late tonight, do you?”

“Lissa, darling, at this point who knows how long this is going to be. Surely you can find a way over here right now. I really need you to be by my side, just like I was by yours.” Not letting Lissa get a word in otherwise, Maribelle hung up, hoping that the rushed feel to the call would be enough to prompt her friend into a quick solution.

It did, as Lissa would do anything to make sure she was with Maribelle at such an important time in her life, but the one solution she kept going back to was one that her friend would not approve of. But desperate times called for desperate measures, she knew, and time wasn’t necessarily on her side.

So, when Lissa got over to Maribelle’s apartment not even half an hour later, she brought with her someone that had been more than willing to give her a ride—someone that Maribelle looked disgusted to see walking into her apartment. “Who said he could come with you?” she asked, not even trying to hide her displeasure. “I said I needed _you_ by my side, not you and him both!”

“Yeah, well, I needed a ride over, and when I explained the situation to him, he asked if he could come with and I said he could, because a father deserves to get to be there when his baby’s born, no matter what.” Lissa seemed to be proud of what she’d done, and not even the dirtiest of glares that Maribelle was shooting at Frederick would get her to feel otherwise. “Now either accept him as being here, or you lose me. Which do you want?”

She took in a sharp breath, before exhaling in defeat. “Both of you it is. As long as he stays on the other side of the room and does not even dare talk to me, after having caused this.”

“Perhaps we should have informed her of this decision before walking in,” Frederick muttered under his breath, before having his arm grabbed by Lissa while he tried to go to where he’d been directed to be. “I am trying to obey her demands, Lissa. Unhand me.”

“I stand by what I said. You deserve to be here, with her, and not on the other side of the room. You got her into this mess, kind of, now you get to be here as she gets out of it.” Tightening her grip slightly, Lissa heard Frederick sigh and say that he would do as _she_ said, not as Maribelle did. “That’s the spirit! Now come on, there’s a baby that’s gotta get born!”


	7. The Results of Bad Decisions

If only Lissa’s excitement was contagious, then the others in the room could possibly share in it, but because she was too excited for something that she was only watching, there was no way that anyone else would get even half as excited as her. Frederick would have been more inclined to be thrilled for the moment if the situation as a whole had been a prettier one, but because he was being glared at every few seconds, his presence being thoroughly hated, he couldn’t find it in him to get excited. As for Maribelle, she was beginning to really regret her decision to go through the birthing process completely unmedicated, and any excitement she might have had about getting to finally meet her child was being pushed aside thanks to all the pain she was experiencing.

It got to the point where she was nearly begging everyone who was present, most especially her midwife, to give her something to take the edge off of her suffering. The midwife, a sweet old lady who didn’t do much more than smile and mumble things to herself, pulled out a piece of paper that she handed to Maribelle, who thought she was being given a list of possible things she could take. “This…is just a copy of the contract we drafted when we set this home birth thing up,” she said after reading over the text, all of which was written in her own handwriting. “Are you really telling me that I can’t even have a little bit of something just to make it stop hurting so bad?”

The old lady’s smile grew a bit and she shook her head, taking the contract back amidst Maribelle’s almost deafening screams at the denial. “You didn’t think this one through very well, did you?” Lissa’s voice was shaking, as she was trying not to laugh at what her friend had brought upon herself. “I could have told you a million times that this was going to hurt, but no, you had to go and sign a contract saying you can’t have anything to help you at all!”

“I figured that your pain came from the complications that came with trying to give birth to a child much larger than your body could handle,” Maribelle admitted, fully realizing that she’d made a big mistake in assuming anything. “It never once hit me, until mere moments ago, that the act of childbirth itself is a very painful thing!”

“Maribelle, you’re so stupid sometimes.” Giving into her laughter, Lissa went to reach out to her friend to playfully shake her, but thought better of it due to her current situation, so instead she shook Frederick’s shoulder instead. “Isn’t she stupid? Come on, tell her she’s stupid for doing this.”

“I’m not going to flat-out insult the woman who’s actively giving birth to our illegitimate child,” he replied, brushing Lissa’s hand off of him with ease. “I’m already sitting in here on borrowed time. Who’s to say that she wouldn’t kick me out if I were to say anything even remotely insulting about her in her presence?”

Putting a finger to her lips while mid-giggle, Lissa shrugged. “I don’t think anyone can exactly say she wouldn’t do that, but there’s me here to say that she’s not allowed to. You’re going to be here when that baby’s born, and I’m not letting her change my mind. He’s just as much your child as he is hers, which means—“

“Can you shut up about that, Lissa?” Cutting her friend off with a forceful yell, it seemed at first as if Maribelle was speaking while experiencing a contraction, but when one coursed through her body moments later and she legitimately screamed in pain then, it was clear that her yelling was done out of her own anger. She made this clear when she was done with the pain for a moment, slightly panting as she explained herself. “I get it, I was dumb to think that he wasn’t allowed to be here, but I didn’t exactly think he would want to be here. I figured he had enough of seeing me in a vulnerable position the night we made this happen that he would gladly skip out on seeing me like this.”

“Ignoring the part where you make this sound like it’s the result of me taking advantage of you, which we both know is far from the truth, why would I ever want to skip out on being present for the birth of my son?” Frederick, not looking anywhere near Maribelle’s direction in case she was continuing to glare at him, gave a long sigh as she shook his head at how badly she had misjudged his intentions. “Although his existence is not something that I can say I am proud of, the fact remains that we created him and therefore he is equal parts our child to love and raise.”

“That doesn’t mean you’d want to be here, you dumbass!” Once again yelling, Maribelle was beginning to sit up from where she’d been laying on her side, ready to start getting more intense with her argument. “I honestly thought you’d want nothing to do with any of this difficult stuff, only strolling in when the hard work was done and demanding that I hand over _my_ baby so that you can take him home to your daughter as a plaything!”

He could hear her moving around, so he turned to face her right as she was starting to stand up on shaking legs. “Er, shouldn’t you stay laying down?” he asked her, getting an eyeroll as a response. “Whatever, I’m sure that your decisions here in regards to your position will have no effect on the overall birthing process. I do want to clear up this misunderstanding that you seem to have about my intentions regarding our child, though.”

“This might be a good time to do that,” Lissa told the two of them, looking between them as Maribelle took shaky steps closer to where Frederick was sitting. “I mean, just going to put this out there, but once that baby’s born, you guys aren’t going to want to be fighting about him. You’re going to want to be taking care of him. Kind of hard to do that when you’re constantly arguing with one another.”

“Then let me get right to it. I am not planning on taking him and raising him myself. While Sumia and I would love to get to spend as much time with him as possible while he is young, we understand that he has a mother who loves him very much and will do what’s right for him.” Still watching her come ever closer, he sighed again. “If that means that, after today, the next time I get to see him is years from now, when he’s grown and under the impression that his father abandoned him, I will accept it because it’s what was deemed best.”

“I’m not going to keep him away from you, like you’re going to keep him from me!” Her voice was beginning to grow hoarse with her yelling, and she was loud enough that if anyone were wondering if she was being murdered, they’d have justifiable proof to give any calls to authorities. “I’ve carried my precious little baby within me for nine long months and I know that the moment he’s not in me, you’re going to take him because you’re the better parent here! You’re going to fight me every step, reminding me and everyone around me that you’re the married one, that you’re the responsible one, that you can reasonably raise a baby and that I can’t!”

“Maribelle, listen to what you’re saying, and then compare it to what I’ve been telling you! I have no intentions of taking him away from you, unless you approve of it.” She was right in front of him now, and Frederick could see the anger boiling just under the surface of Maribelle’s face as he spoke. “First and foremost, he is rightfully your child and you are allowed to keep him and raise him as you see fit. I do not want to ruin your parenting experience, and so you can do as you wish with him. As long as someday I get to spend time with my child, I’m fine with whatever decisions you make.”

She drew in a short breath, wincing as she did; he completely expected her to continue with her yelling once she’d collected herself, but it was quite the opposite, as she was now trying her hardest to calmly speak to him. “So you’re telling me that you’re just going to leave him in my care and trust that I’m, for instance, not going to hurt him if he gets on my nerves or reminds me too much of you? Because that’s a mighty brave thing for you to do, when you’ve got so many people outside of here who really love my baby already.”

“As a family, we’ve discussed this extensively, and while it hurts to say that we are fine with letting you raise him how you want, it’s the honest truth. Cynthia would love to get the chance to play with her baby brother a time or two, and Sumia is more than fine with taking care of a son that isn’t actually hers, but…” It was now Frederick’s turn to take a breath, trying to keep himself from choking up at what he was saying. “We understand that you’re the one who’s been hurt most by the terrible decision that night, and we want you to get what you deserve out of it—that is, raising the child you’ve sacrificed so much to have.”

Opening her mouth to give a rebuttal to his point, Maribelle couldn’t find the words she needed to say anything close to what she felt like telling him. Her mind was racing, trying to make sense of the fact that she’d never once considered him actually being okay with relinquishing all parental rights to her. She had expected him to take her child at the first chance he got and never give him back, but it seemed that instead, he was expecting her to keep a hand on the child at all times. “I…want to raise him. That’s what I have to do. Need to do. He’s my baby and I…won’t just give him up. But you really do want to be there for him too, don’t you?” she asked, watching him slowly nod at her. “I never thought about us actually, like, sharing him. It’s always been one or the other, not both. Never both.”

“Aw, you two have gotten somewhere in this arguing thing!” Lissa cheered from next to them, putting her hands to her cheeks in her excitement. “It sounds so great to hear you starting to get things all settled in regards to how you’re going to raise baby Brady, after all this time!”

Neither of them really paid attention to the “Although you really should have discussed this before now” that was tacked on to the end in a muttered whisper, because another contraction had started and Maribelle was too focused on trying to not fall flat on her face thanks to the pain. When she did eventually succumb to the pain and lost her balance, she completely expected to find herself laying on the ground, but strong, masculine hands caught her just in time, and she instead found herself having to thank Frederick from keeping her from falling. He didn’t say anything to her aside from reminding her that he had said she shouldn’t have gotten up, a reminder she wasn’t excited to hear. “But the pain honestly isn’t as bad if I’m not laying down,” she said, after the worst had subsided and she was back to her feet. “It’s much, much more bearable when I’m up like this.”

“Yes, but who in their right mind would give birth to a child while standing?” Still holding her to keep her steady, Frederick started nudging her back in the direction of her makeshift bed there in the living room of her apartment. “And, more importantly, would you really want to be responsible for absolute removal of whatever mess ended up on the floor in here? I may not have been through this process myself, quite obviously, but I have witnessed it before, and it’s not exactly the cleanest of events.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll lay back down. But if this birth thing doesn’t happen here soon, I’m getting back up so I’m not suffering as much.” Once again taking her slow steps, Maribelle went back to her bed and got in it, laying on her side once more so that she could look at her two companions and sigh at them. “Seriously, who was the bright one to convince me that this was the best idea in the world? No medication to deal with anything, nothing to speed things up, everything has to go perfectly…”

“Pretty sure it was your decision somewhere way before you had a reason to not like hospitals,” Lissa answered, knowing that her friend wasn’t going to like the answer she gave. “Like, I’m almost certain from the moment you started talking about birth plans, you were like ‘at home, wherever that is, and as natural as possible’ just because you love hurting yourself. And, I remember this, you didn’t want to hear a word of me saying that it was going to be long and painful and probably the worst experience of your life.”

“That’s because I thought you were speaking of what you had gone through, not of what every woman goes through! Forgive me for thinking that you weren’t being representative of multiple experiences!” Squeezing her eyes shut as she could feel every little nerve firing off in pain throughout her body, she gave a low whine that quickly turned into something more high pitched. “I’ve made a horrible mistake here, deciding to go about this in this manner. Oh gods, please let this go by quickly and not much more painfully!”

No matter how badly she might have wanted things to go quickly, there was no guaranteeing it would happen, and her suffering lasted through the afternoon and into the evening, things slowly getting worse and more intense every hour. By the time night was upon them, she was exhausted from the pain and the two people there with her were growing tired of hearing her complains and groans of pain. There was nothing they could do but deal with it, though, as if anyone so much as stepped outside the room for even a minute, Maribelle would instantly assume they were abandoning her and try to chase them down, something that no one wanted her doing. The one upside to her occasional position changes and movements was that it seemed to be having some positive effect on the pace of her labor, to the point that after one instance of getting up to chase Lissa down after she’d left to update her family on what was happening, the midwife gave a mumbled message that it was just about time to get to the pushing and actual birthing part of the day.

For all the complaining about how much pain she was in just due to the contractions, Maribelle wasn’t expecting things to possibly be able to get worse for her. She’d already cried so many times over the course of the day, screaming out about how much she hated what she’d gotten herself into, that she figured that the easy part was upon her. That was definitely not the case in the slightest, as she found out the first time she was directed to push in conjunction with the next contraction to overtake her, and the resulting pain was enough to get her to cry for the following ten minutes. During that time, she was comforted by the people she was surrounded with, one of whom was being very supportive and the other of whom was just trying to remind her that she had to get through this somehow.

“You know,” she choked out, tears actively streaming down her face from the pain, “I’m well aware I have no choice but to get through this. Perhaps next time you do this to a woman, they’ll have found a way to make the man suffer as well.”

Frederick shook his head at what she was saying, offering her his hand to take hold of. “I’m afraid the only ways they have to make a man suffer during childbirth are through having to listen to the woman curse his name and existence, and through the use of squeezing their hand until it breaks. It would be quite all right with me if you chose to do both of those in this very moment.”

“I’ll keep that offer in mind,” was her response, as she took hold of his hand and gave it a firm squeeze to see if he reacted; all he did was narrow his eyes at her slightly while she loosened her grip. “Hey, at least you’re willing to give me something to hold onto here. Might help this process go by a bit quicker.”

“You can have my hand too, then!” Offering her own hand to her friend, Lissa smiled when it was taken hold of, but her smile faced into an expression of pain when she was squeezed the exact same way Frederick had been. “Okay, ow, maybe that’s going to end up being a bad idea, but oh well. Gotta help my friend in whatever way I can!”

With the support of the two fresh in mind, Maribelle made it through a few rounds of pushing, all while squeezing the life out of her companions’ hands in the process. When she took another few minutes to collect herself, the midwife very quietly said that the very top of the baby’s head was coming into view, and that it wouldn’t be much longer before everything was over. The news was appreciated, but it wasn’t much consolation as it meant that there was still work to be done in the process. Yet, after being denied being able to see what the midwife meant as “coming into view”, Maribelle had a bit of an idea that she suggested without thinking about the consequences: “Why don’t you go watch from here on out, Frederick? I’m sure you’d love to someday tell our child you actually watched his birth.”

“I’m quite fine with watching from my current position,” he replied, swallowing down hard. “The mere thought of watching the process at any other angle doesn’t sit right with me. Thank you for the offer, but I’m respectfully declining it.” Her reaction was to grip his hand as hard as she could, him wincing as she did. “Why are you so insistent that I watch? There is no need for it.”

“I was just trying to be polite. You know, let you see the end result of what you did to me first and all that.” Once again letting her grip on his hand loosen, Maribelle took in a deep breath, knowing that her next contraction was upon her. “But if you don’t want to see it, that’s perfectly fine, I’ll make sure he knows you backed out of watching like a little bitch.”

He swallowed down again, before pulling his hand away from hers. “I’m not entirely sure why you’re so insistent on me watching from a different position, but I’m not going to deny you your strangest request in this moment.” As he took the few steps to get down to the end of her bed, looking uncomfortable with every passing moment, she forced a grin in his direction before beginning to push once more. This created the result of him looking and seeing much more than just the _top_ of the baby’s head, and he genuinely turned pale at the sight. “Er, well, that is one child I’m watching being born. May I please not have to watch from this angle? I don’t think I can stand watching this for very long…”

“Maybe you should listen to him, Maribelle. He kinda looks like he’s going to pass out from the sight.” Lissa, speaking in a high squeal due to how hard her hand was being squeezed, hoped that her friend would at least consider her words, but she was too wrapped up in making Frederick suffer to listen to reason. This was made all the worse when the midwife held up one finger and said that it should only take one more strong push to get the baby out, and so Maribelle was focusing more on attaining that goal than anyone else’s comfort.

The issue was, one more strong push turned into another thirty minutes of weaker ones, as her body was exhausted to the point that she couldn’t exert the energy needed to do what had been asked of her. This meant that, through all that time, the poor guy was forced to watch the child slowly, slowly make his way into the world, a process that he gladly would have skipped watching in such a way had he been given the choice.

The first wail of the child was a beautiful sound to everyone who was present; at the noise, Frederick stumbled backwards a bit, taken by surprise that he was actually hearing what he was, while Lissa clapped her free hand against the one still being held by Maribelle, excited for her friend in such a happy time of her life. Maribelle herself stayed quiet, tired from everything she had just gone through, but once the initial shock dissipated she started crying, blubbering something or other about how she couldn’t believe what had happened.

Moments later, after the cord was cut and a very rough cleaning of the still-wailing child was completed, the midwife placed him directly on his mother’s chest, his tiny face in the direction of hers. Although she was crying herself, she could see that he was calming down just being where he was, and by the time her tears had tried, he was completely quiet, taking in small breaths compared to her deep ones. “H-he’s…perfect,” she whispered, moving her hand to rest on his back. “My precious little Brady. Happy birthday, little guy.”

“He sure is a ‘little’ guy, oh my gosh!” Not able to contain her excitement, Lissa was squealing a bit too close to the newborn, causing him to start whining again for a few moments, calming down once more when he felt his mother’s hand stroking his back gently. “I didn’t mean to cause him to cry,” she apologized, before trying to explain what she’d meant with her initial statement. “I didn’t know that he was going to be such a small baby, Maribelle. I mean, I totally didn’t think he was going to be anything close to Owain’s size, but I also didn’t think he was going to be so small…”

“He’s not small, he’s _perfect_ ,” corrected Maribelle, her voice still no more than a whisper. “Simply the best child, to allow me to be the best mother possible.”

Walking back to be by her side, Frederick seemed to be in a continued state of surprise at everything that had happened, which involved him getting a good look at the child currently resting on her chest. “He certainly seems like he’ll be an easy one to raise. Of course, that’s how most children seem when they’re this small, but I believe that he will truly be a good child.” Reaching out to the boy, he didn’t hesitate even slightly to actually place his hand on his arm, smiling as he did. “Even though the circumstances weren’t the greatest, I must say I’m honored to be this child’s father.”

“Aw, you two are going to do this parenting thing so well, I think! I just hope that your combined love of little Brady here is enough to keep you two focused on doing what’s best for him, forever and always!” Once again forgetting to check her volume, Lissa didn’t wake the child again, but she did get hushed by both of the parents. “Oops, sorry again! I’m just so excited for you guys that he’s finally here and he’s perfect and everything went just fine in the end, after all the bad things that happened to get us here.”

“Let’s focus on the good things and not the bad ones, shall we? I want to remember this moment as a glorious one, not one filled with bad recollections.” Maribelle leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the top of Brady’s head, which was covered in the finest, softest light hair that she’d ever touched in her life. “Let’s just focus on my Brady being here with us, finally, and nothing else.” There wasn’t much else that anyone could focus on at that moment, and so Maribelle was to get her way on the matter.

* * *

The act of knocking at the door was a lot more terrifying than Maribelle had expected it would be, but the fact that it was closed to begin with worried her. She’d been told she should just be able to walk right in without worrying about announcing her presence, yet there she was, having to knock to let everyone inside know she was there. Her hand was shaking quite a bit as she steeled herself for knocking, but after one forceful hit someone inside the room opened the door, propping it open just wide enough for her to push her stroller inside it without any hassle.

Inside the classroom, a group of intimidated students stared at her, questioning her presence quite openly. “I heard she’s the teacher’s side woman,” one student loudly said, earning himself a few rebuttals from other students trying to explain the situation as they had heard of it. “No way, guys, she’s totally his side woman. He showed us his wife, remember?”

“Silence, class. We will get to who she is and why she is here later in the period.” Silencing the students with his firm voice and no-nonsense attitude, Frederick went from looking at the group over to Maribelle, and then from her to the sleeping child in the stroller she had with her. “Asleep? You brought him over here for him to be asleep? How am I supposed to hold him if picking him up will make him cry?”

“I guess you’re not supposed to,” she replied, jostling the stroller a bit in hopes that the motion would cause the child to wake up. “Which sucks, because it’s been a couple weeks since he last spent any time with you, and he needs to remember how much you love him.”

Crouching down to get a better view of the child, Frederick reached in to run his thumb over the baby’s cheek, smiling as he did. “It’s not my love I’m afraid of him forgetting and you know this. He’ll always remember that I love him, but that’s not even what has me upset right now. I was just hoping that I could hold him up in front of the class and put the rumors about his existence to rest, but there are always other days to do that. Today, they can believe that he’s our illegitimate love child, and tomorrow they can learn that he’s a parenting experience like none other.”

“I’m glad that you’re taking this whole thing in stride and making a teaching experience of it.” Smiling, Maribelle also looked down at the child in the stroller, making a mental note of how much he’d changed in the past few days, let alone the last few weeks and the several months since he’d been born. “He’s probably the most interesting first-day icebreaker I could have brought for you, and he had to be asleep for it.”

“Now you’re beginning to see my side of things here.” Standing back up, Frederick turned his attention back to his class for a quick second, explaining that he would have loved to have shown them the baby but he wouldn’t be able to, before speaking to Maribelle once more. “We do need to discuss the next time I can spend some time with him at some point. Now that school is back in session the free time I have is once again limited, so we’ll have to get creative with what we do. But now’s not the time to talk about this. If you don’t mind, could you stay around the school until lunch so that we could talk then?”

She nodded, beginning to turn the stroller around to head out of the classroom. “You’ve got it. I’ve got the perfect place to spend time while I wait, so no worries on me minding.” As she wheeled the stroller through the door, the chatter amongst the students started up once more, still flinging accusations that she was a side woman in a relationship, but she ignored their words as she knew Frederick would set them straight when he got the chance. “I can’t believe those silly kids in there would talk bad about me when you were in there with me,” she said down to the baby in the stroller, who was still peacefully sleeping. “They need to be told the truth about you and how you came to be, but not the _actual_ truth, of course. That’s a story that’s meant to be kept private.”

The hallways were empty, all the students in class for the first time that semester, and walking through them while pushing the stroller was an odd experience for Maribelle. She had so many memories of this school, of all the time she’d spent as a student causing trouble and having fun while still being an exceptional member of the school community, making it feel weird to her that she was just walking around in the middle of classes with a baby with her. As she looked around at the walls that she vividly remembered always being covered with posters made by students, now ones that were bare and waiting for new outbursts of creativity, she heard small babbles coming from in front of her. She peeked over the top of the stroller to see Brady looking around a lot like she had been, making soft noises to himself as he saw different shapes and colors.

“Oh Brady, you were supposed to wake up when we were visiting your father. I mean, there’s no taking back the fact that you weren’t awake then, but you could have seen him and he would have been so happy.” At the sound of her voice, the boy broke into a toothless grin, giggling and waving his arms around. She could feel herself melting at the sight of her son being so adorable, but the middle of the hallway during classes was no place to be admiring his cuteness. As quickly as she could, without looking like she was in a panic, she pushed the stroller down to the office area of the school, then down another hallway just far enough to find a closed door that was already covered in little crayon drawings.

Without knocking, she opened the door, before turning around so that she entered the room backwards, pulling the stroller in with her. “Gods, Maribelle, this room isn’t big enough for that thing,” Lissa said, watching what her friend was doing. “You’re going to have to get him out and fold it up, just in case someone else tries to come in here while you’re here.” She paused, thinking really hard about what was happening, and then asked, “Wait, why are you here, anyway? It’s the first day of school!”

“I’ve heard from a few individuals that it’s tradition for teachers’ children to be brought in on the first day of school, so I figured I’d do Frederick a favor and bring his son in to see him.” Working on getting Brady out of the stroller, something the boy was resisting simply because he didn’t want to be held, Maribelle gave Lissa a slightly exasperated look. “And then this little boy decided he was going to be asleep for every moment we were in his father’s classroom, but he woke up once we were headed down here. So much for my act of kindness being appreciated.”

“I’m sure he appreciated even getting to see the little guy. But that doesn’t answer why you’re here, with me, in my office. That just says why you came to the school.” Lissa waited for an answer to come, but Maribelle became distracted with trying to get a small hand untangled from her hair, as Brady had decided he was just going to grab her hair and pull it in his attempt to not be moved. Once she had him freed from her hair and out of the stroller, him whimpering as if he was going to start bawling, Maribelle explained that she was waiting to talk to Frederick at lunch and needed somewhere to wait for lunch to come. “Oh, that’s like two hours from now. Are you sure you want to just sit in here with me?”

“It would go over better than walking home and walking back, so yes,” Maribelle replied, bouncing her baby on her lap to try and keep him from getting any closer to crying. “And since it seems we’re going to be here for the next couple hours, mind folding my stroller for me? I would do it, but,” she looked down at how both her arms were currently occupied, “I’m holding my dearest and I don’t want to set him aside.”

Lissa laughed, standing up from her chair to start unfolding the stroller as she’d been asked. “I totally understand, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want you to set him down in here, not when…” Her voice trailed off as she looked around the small room slightly confused. “Um, when Owain’s running around in here, is what I was going to say, but I don’t actually know where he’s hiding. He was sitting and coloring earlier, and now he’s not.” She got the stroller to its smallest state rather quickly and put it in the corner of the room, after which she started checking everywhere for where her child might have gotten off to. “I don’t know how he could disappear like this! That door has opened once today since we got here, and that’s when you came in, Maribelle. He didn’t get out then, I don’t think.”

“Mama, right here!” Owain’s voice called out from under one of the chairs against the wall. Placing a hand over her heart and sighing, Lissa ordered him to come out from his hiding spot, which he did, revealing that he had what looked like three bare lollipop sticks in one hand, with a fourth sticking out of his mouth.

“Owain, you naughty boy, I said you could eat _one_ of those, not all of them!” The little boy laughed, offering his mom the bare sticks but not the one in his mouth. She took them, noting just how damp they still were, and frowned down at him. “I gave you those because you were a good boy today at the assembly, and now you’re being naughty. Wait until I tell your daddy that you did this!”

His green eyes going wide, Owain shook his head rapidly and took the fourth stick from his mouth, some candy still hanging on to the other side. “No mama, pwease not tell!” he begged her. “Pwease not!”

“I’m so glad that my child won’t ever break the rules like yours does,” Maribelle said while watching the exchange between mother and child before her. “No, Brady will be raised to fear what comes after breaking rules and misbehaving, and therefore he’ll be a perfect child in every way.” She bounced her baby a bit more, him starting to fall asleep at the motion.

It was then, while she was talking, that Owain noticed that the other kid was even there, and he bolted from the confrontation with his mother to instead shove his candy up into Brady’s face. “Baby Brady! Want candy?” he asked, not waiting for any answer before pushing the lollipop into the baby’s mouth. It startled the boy back awake, and the strange object in his mouth was enough to make him cry, distressing Owain as he hadn’t meant to hurt the other boy. “No, pwease not cry! Baby Brady pwease not!”

“How dare you push that into his mouth! No wonder he’s crying, he’s far too little to be having candies like that one!” Trying not to scold a child that wasn’t hers, Maribelle ripped the stick out of Owain’s hand, pulled the candy from her son’s mouth, and tossed it straight in the trash next to Lissa’s desk. “Now you apologize to Brady right now for upsetting him. I cannot believe you thought such a thing was a good idea!” Owain quietly gave an apology, going back to his normal spot against the wall to sit and pass the time while his mother went back to sitting at her desk and Maribelle tried her hardest to get her son to stop crying in as little time as possible. Once he got started, however, it was hard to calm him down in a timely manner, and he was crying far too hard for her simple bouncing trick to work.

However, her alternative idea earned her a scream from Lissa, as her friend made a quick movement to put a “please knock” sign up on her door. “Maribelle, you can’t just decide you’re going to start feeding the boy in here without warning me! What if a student tried to come in here right now? They’d be treated to, well, not really a sight, but you know how people in that age group can be!”

“I had no other options but this one,” she replied, rolling her eyes at her friend’s overreaction to her choosing to start feeding her child there in the office. “I wasn’t going to let him cry, and the only way to get him calm after he’s really upset is to let him latch on and eat for a little bit. No one’s going to try coming in here while I’m ‘indecent’ anyway, so was the freak-out there necessary?”

“It was, because what if someone needs to come in? Now they know they need to knock before entering. That’s all I freaked out about.” Lissa sighed, sitting down once again. “But you’re right, who’s even going to be coming in here on the first day of school?”

She knew who would come in, and she knew exactly when they would, so when there was a knock at the door a couple minutes later, she was able to give Maribelle an “I told you so” look before opening the door to let the person in. “Okay, what’s goin’ on in here that requires the sign bein’ up?” Vaike asked as he stepped inside the office, his question being answered the moment he looked at Maribelle and what she was doing. “Ah, right, that would definitely be the kind ‘a thing that needs knockin’ beforehand.”

“Enough about her. How about you talk about your day so far instead, because I’m super curious as to how it’s going.” Lissa looked at her husband, smiling as she did. “Is it as bad as you were thinking it was going to be? You don’t look too tired from dealing with everyone.”

“It’s only the first day. Introductions and whatnot. Ain’t any game playin’ yet.” Leaning up against the wall, Vaike took a deep breath before continuing on talking. “I remember that first year teachin’ here, how hard it was to get the kids to all participate at the same time. Ended up with lots ‘a the underachievers sittin’ out while everyone else played. Gonna miss havin’ smaller classes, but what can the Vaike do ‘bout it? Nothin’, that’s what.”

“Well, you have fun with those introductions and all that stuff, and I’m sure you’ll make having big classes work. You did that first year.” Her smile got a bit bigger, especially when he bent down to give her a quick kiss. “I believe in you and what you can do with your classes and all the kids in them!”

He thanked her for her assuring words and was just about to leave when a small voice came from under the chairs once more, Owain having gone back to his hiding spot. “Love you, daddy,” the little boy said, pushing a piece of paper out from where he was. “Lots and lots!”

“Is he down there drawin’ pictures again?” Vaike completely bent down to pick up the paper, finding that it wasn’t just a picture, but rather a note written entirely in scribbles that had a crude drawing of three stick people at the bottom. “Looks like he is,” he said, holding the paper tight to his core while he stood back up. “Love ya, li’l guy. Gonna go frame this one in the gym somewhere. It’s a real keeper.”

The boy erupted into giggles under the chairs, not sure of how to respond to what his dad had just said to him. “You say that about every picture he draws. That kid’s got a real creative streak in him, and I’m glad that he likes drawing for us, but eventually we’re going to run out of room to keep his pictures.” Lissa would have kept talking, but Vaike seemed like he was needing to get out of the room. She looked at the clock, then to him, and nodded, understanding why he felt he needed to go. “Get to that class. I’ll talk to you at lunch!” He kissed her one more time before leaving the office, making sure the door was closed tightly behind him as he left. “Oh man, I can just see how stressed he is over this class situation,” she remarked upon his exit. “Normally he’s got some weird suggestion for how he can make his classes work better, but now he’s accepting that he can’t do a thing…”

“I don’t mean to intrude on anything, but shouldn’t there be two teachers in his position?” Maribelle was thinking back to all the interactions she’d had with whom she’d been told was the other gym teacher at the school. “Unless Chrom got smart and fired that wretched woman, in which case, why didn’t he hire a replacement?”

Lissa tugged at one of her pigtails, trying to think up a good way to answer Maribelle’s question. “Well, um, you see, she still works here, but she can’t exactly work right now, if that makes any sense? Even though she totally wanted to come back and work for a little bit, but Chrom thought that was a bad idea and told her she couldn’t.” Seeing her best friend’s blank stare in her direction, Lissa let go of her hair and explained it in the straightest manner she possibly could: “Somewhere in the craziness that was the month before my wedding, I guess there was some more drunken sleeping that happened at one of those parties, or maybe it was there were drunken promises made that were fulfilled later? I don’t actually know the details on that part, but what I do know is that you weren’t the only member of the wedding party that was pregnant.”

What that meant hit Maribelle slowly, but once she got the message, she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Naturally, the woman who led to my whole situation gets into one herself. I can’t say I’m not shocked in the slightest at this turn of events.”

“I wish I could say I’m not shocked either, but I honestly was when I found out. I didn’t realize that Sully was actually _into_ guys, so it was kind of like a crazy revelation for me to learn that she is very much into one particular guy. Of course, the fact that they were all drinking like fools probably didn’t help her judgment.” Lissa stopped speaking at the sound of her friend laughing, raising her eyebrows in Maribelle’s direction. “Okay, what’s so funny right now?”

“At your wedding, I had found someone in an uncomfortable position that you and I have both known very well at times in our lives, and I didn’t think much beyond not recognizing their shoes. Had I known I would have seen that head of red hair and answered this for myself back then, I would have spied on her to no end!” Her laughter was turning more to cackles, which was startling the child she was still feeding, so Maribelle had to tone down her giddiness at this news. “It’s so lovely when someone gets what’s coming to them after they’ve screwed over someone else! Who’s the unlucky man who has to put up with her?”

Looking towards the door, where someone had been knocking for most of what Maribelle had just said, Lissa frowned. “Um, actually, it’s who’s trying to get in here. You stop talking rude about someone who isn’t that bad at all, so that he doesn’t have to hear you saying such mean things about his ladyfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sure he says them himself,” Maribelle replied, before promising she wouldn’t say anything rude. While Lissa went to open the door for their new visitor, Maribelle went ahead and made herself decent once more, her baby content and calm and, most importantly, not crying like he had been. “What a good child, easy to please with something to eat,” she whispered down to Brady, who was looking up at her with heavy-lidded eyes, just about to fall back asleep. “You’re too precious, my little one.”

“I didn’t know that there was already a gathering in here,” the newcomer nervously said, as he stepped inside the office, clearly put off by Maribelle’s presence. “I thought I could come spend my off-period talking a bit more about babies and what to expect with them, but I don’t want to intrude on anything where I don’t belong.”

“You’re always welcome in here, Stahl, even if Maribelle’s here. Hey, it might actually work out better if you stay here with both of us, since we both can give you tips and stuff!” Giving Stahl a thumbs-up as he contemplated staying or going, Lissa shot her friend a quick glance before asking loudly, “That is correct, right Maribelle? You’ll help the guy out, won’t you?”

Maribelle gave a non-committal noise, before looking at the clock and seeing that barely half an hour had passed since she’d come into the office. She really didn’t have a choice in the matter, she decided, and so she slowly nodded. “I’m sure I’ve learned a thing or two about raising a child that could prove itself useful in this situation.”

“You ladies are awesome, I hope you know.” Sighing in relief, Stahl took a seat in one of the chairs that Owain was hiding out under, causing the little boy to scream for a moment as he got himself out of his spot to find somewhere new to draw his pictures. “Sorry about that. I’ll bring by some snacks or something later to make up for upsetting him, Lissa. Actually, I’ll bring something by just for you letting me come in here and talk! That’s fine, right?”

“You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,” Lissa replied, giving Stahl a kind smile to hopefully help calm his nervous appearance. “Now let’s start talking about all this. There’s so many things I’m sure you’re curious about…”

Listening to her friend talk about babies and everything that comes with them, Maribelle couldn’t help but smile at some of the things that were being said. The part about a child being the most important thing in someone’s life hit especially close to home—and although it was a bit ruined by Stahl asking if a child could possibly be more important than food, the comment lingered with Maribelle for quite a while. She’d wanted so badly, at one point or another, to consider herself the most important thing she knew, but the past six months of her life had taught her to think otherwise. Kissing the top of her baby’s head, Maribelle knew that he was the sole object of her affections now, and that she could never love anything more than she loved him.

He was the best thing in her life, despite all the terrible things that had happened leading up to his birth, and nothing could ever take her love away from him.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I did a decent job of setting the scene without doing too much in the way of recapping the entire plot of Plucky and Prideful, which is fine by me.


End file.
